Corruption
by SaraiDaDee
Summary: Previously named Briar/Evan... Evangeline is a college girl just trying to figure out what to do with her life when she meets a dangerous yet alluring vampire who, much like a corrupting drug, could fulfill her every desire while also threatening to destroy her life and everyone in it. In Progress...
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Due to a sudden increase in messages requesting that I put this back up (some admittedly pretty angry…) and good convincing from namely danix123, I've decided to go ahead and do so. Sorry I took it down in the first place. I've previously been on Hiatus, but if it looks like people like this, I'll update when I can. :3 Enjoy.

**One**

The cool glass was a comfort to my warm forehead as I peered out into the rainy campus from the third floor of the University Library, which just so happen to be the hottest floor of the whole library, being that it was the topmost floor and the air conditioner didn't seem to extend its cool fingers beyond the second floor. It was a minor sacrifice I made in order to find my peace during this rainy day. The campus was empty of life outside the buildings, and what people that dared to run through the thick rain were rushed and somewhat giddy as though the touch of rainwater made them ticklish.

I had already finished my assigned reading, Jonathan Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_, in which a European man ran around from cultures of small, large, and idiotic people, not to mention intelligent horses that made him despise his own kind. The only thing I didn't agree with it was the fact that Gulliver didn't end up hating himself as well, being that he was indeed human. To have him think of himself as better made him as bad as the rest of the human race, but then that was a discussion for my English course. Now I found myself sitting in the library, not yet ready to make my way to my room across campus while the flood was raging on outside.

"Evan," I heard someone hiss to me, and I slowly turned my head to see Brielle, my roommate which had developed somewhat of a stalker-like tendency towards me. She was something of a beauty, though, and had attached to me after a drunken blur of a night resulted in us participating in near-sexual activities. Luckily, I had gained my senses before anything had actually happened, but feelings sparked from that night that was completely one-sided. I didn't have the heart to actually tear Brielle from my life, considering the fact that she was a good friend, but I was afraid I would have to get a new roommate in the future if she continued to have feelings for me for too long a period.

Brielle was an honest, open type of person. She was nothing short of sweet, but extremely emotional. It gave her great intuition, though, and so her knowledge of things concerning the heart was vast. She was studying to become a doctor, which I thought would not work out well for her in the future. Death is not something I believed would be her friend, but she was a medical genius with great ambition. Her goal was set, and she was still going strong into the second half of her second year in college. As for Brielle's looks, like I said, she was a beauty. Her skin was a soft milky brown, being a descendant of an interracial relationship that hadn't worked out in the end. Her father died just after she was born, leaving her living most of her life with her single white mother. Her hair—along with her eyes—was black as night, but soft as clouds, leaving easy curls down to her mid-back. She had developed a thick body from God knows where, for her mother was a flat stick, and though many men from all over dove into her path for her attention, she was focused on the female population.

"Bri," I slowly responded quietly, smiling when she stalked over with a most depressed form of a wet stray dog. She moved a chair closer to me to sit down, and I shifted in my signature plush chair to sit back and peer at her with my eyes lidded. Brielle would tell me the look was seductive, and yet pointedly curious as though I was a scientist studying a project. It was my amused gaze, though, which I used when I wanted to make her nervous or self-conscious. I was amazed to find that she had walked through the rain outside and somehow found my location.

"Don't look at me like that unless you mean to do something with it," Brielle teased, and I smiled even more humorously. She messed with her hair before moving to a comfortable seating position in order to have a conversation with me. "Leah told me you were here, I figured I'd come over to see if you were actually busy doing anything."

"I was just finishing an English reading assignment, actually… for some reason the atmosphere here invites a more studying and reading environment. If someone were to ask me, I would say it could possibly be because of the books surrounding us, making me feel guilty if I don't do as they suggest," I chuckled, looking at the nearby shelf of books that gave information on old aircraft and boating tips. Brielle looked out of place here in her rather dressed up outfit. In fact, it looked as though she were preparing for one of her parties. I had to think if it was a party night or not, or perhaps I had forgotten. I got invited to parties often at least once a week, but only went when Brielle begged me to. I hoped she wasn't here to do just that.

"You're one of the few people I know who actually does their homework early. Didn't the English Professor assign that just today," Brielle laughed, flipping through the pages of my textbook easily. She had the same English class as me, even though it was more for English majors like me than Pre-Medicine like her. She had told me she took it as an elective, to fill in hours, but I knew she just wanted to hang around me more. As long as she didn't start making a shrine, using voodoo dolls against me, or other things of extreme obsessive mannerism.

"Well… yes, but I like to try to get things out of the way so I don't have to worry about them later," I responded easily. "In fact, you should probably practice that more, Miss Procrastinator. When are you planning on reading it? An hour before class? Or you just gonna sparknote it?" I smiled when she rolled her eyes, followed by a sheepish smirk that confirmed my suspicion.

"So you going out tonight or something," I asked curiously, looking her up and down to emphasize her outfit. She looked at herself as though she forgot she had clothed herself for a moment, but then nodded.

"Oh yeah, I was gonna ask you if you wanted to come with me to a party down at the frat house. I know it's raining and all, but it's not too far from here. And I have an umbrella," She pleaded, pouting her lips desperately. I didn't change my expression when she asked this, seeing as I had been sort of expecting it, but merely thought about it for a bit.

"I don't know. I hate the rain," I said slowly.

"I know, but you can have the umbrella. And it's not quite flooding, the drains are keeping it from flooding it onto the sidewalks," Brielle continued, pulling out an umbrella to move for me to grab. I hesitated, looking outside. The ditches would be like rivers by now, and I could easily slip walking on the sidewalk. I've heard of people drowning in ditches, it's not impossible. And I had a fear of drowning… I couldn't even swim. "Evaaaan, Pleeeaaassse." I knew I would give in to her begging, and so I didn't fight it.

"Okay, but if I die, you have no one to blame but yourself," I told her darkly, and she jumped up with a squeak happily. I sighed, putting the textbook into my backpack, and followed her to the elevator. We would have to walk to the dorm room to put up my books and get dressed (though I'm a bit of an education nerd, I do like to look hot for a party). Before we got outside, I opened the umbrella, and Brielle tried to grab it from me, gasping about bad luck and such. I wasn't much of a person for superstition though, so I merely continued outside with her.

When we got into the dorms, I pushed my backpack into my closet, and looked through my clothing to get out of my sweatpants and t-shirt. I had had a fitness class earlier today, and never cared to actually change due to the fact that we ended up sitting the whole class waiting for our drunken Professor to come. I felt it was an easy A, but also felt it was a waste of time and money. I pay what… twenty-eight dollars a day for that class? Just to sit around?

I pulled out black skinny jeans from the closet, along with a stylish black and white shirt that was loose around the bust but tighter around the middle before loosening up again at the seams. I moved to look in the mirror after I had put on the outfit to see if it matched well. A good beaded necklace, hoops, and a bit of makeup with a hairstyle and I would be good to go. I pulled my hair up in a ponytail, using a clasp to hold most of it to my hair while the rest flowed easily around the clasp in waves. After applying a bit of makeup and jewelry, I pulled on leather high heeled boots, zipping them up the side to finish the look. And I examined myself in the mirror.

My hair, which was a fiery red, was like a target in the night. Some people would ask me if I dyed it that way, but it was a natural color passed through my family for generations. Some black tended to be spouted out here and there. My eyes were a dark blue, sharp and intense, which I could wield to my power easily in order to intimidate people. They were one of my strong attributes, and my favorite thing about myself. My skin was a creamy white, not adapted to extreme sunlight due to my easily burnt nature that came with being a redhead. I was missing the freckle aspect, though, but also missing were the acne, which wasn't uncommon due to the fact that by the age of twenty not a lot of people were suffering severe acne as seen by pubescent periods.

I bit my lip, looking at the back of my skinny jeans to make sure there were no sudden holes or stains I had missed before. "What do you think," I asked Brielle, who was watching me get dressed. I tried not to let her crush bother me by not thinking about it, otherwise I would become super paranoid and possibly insane. I just hoped eventually she'd forget about it and find someone else.

"You look sexy, Evan," Brielle responded with a smirk. My name, Evan, was actually a nickname that often confused people in conversation if they didn't know me, making them think Brielle or some other friend of mine was talking about a man. Actually, my name was Evangeline, my full name being Evangeline Cosette Delaney. My parents went through a phase of elegance when I was conceived, resulting in my utterly divine name. My mother wanted me to be nicknamed Angel or Angie, but my father's nickname of Evan stuck when everyone came to notice my tomboy nature that came with growing up with two brothers who considered the little sister as one of the boys. My mother feared the nickname would result in me becoming more masculine than usual, but I ended up just as female as any daughter would be.

"Well, I'm ready to go when you are," I told Brielle, whose name was also somewhat elegant. Though I'm pretty sure her middle name was something like Lee. Or maybe there was an 'H' at the end, I couldn't quite be sure. Either way, it balanced out the name to be more normal than completely out there like mine was. Besides, her last name was a nice and solid… Woods. Not that I hated my name; in fact, it was a pretty name. It was just a lot to write down sometimes.

"Okay," Brielle responded, jumping up to look outside, "Oh look, it's not even raining anymore!" I smirked. So much for bad luck.

I felt as though tonight was going to be interesting. People were moving down the road, feeling braver to head to the frat house party now that the sky wasn't crying overhead and threatening to damage good hairdos. I waved to whoever would call out my name, as Brielle threaded an arm through my left one to lean against me as we walked. Often people would think Bri and I was a couple, seeing as homosexuality was actually quite common in this college, but I didn't really have a thing for females. I can admit that at one point I considered the option, but then when a fine man walks past, I can't help but to steal a look at his physique.

The frat house wasn't far off campus, so we reached it pretty quickly. The air was cool from the April shower, but the season was still reaching into spring, and so the inside of the building was nothing short of heated by the bodies of the students (and some others) swamping what space they could inside. Brielle kept a grip on my arm so as to not lose me, and I found a spot for us two near the speakers that was blaring the latest beats. Brielle was one of those self-conscious people, one who refused to dance alone, and so I had to start moving my body first in order to coax her to be comfortable enough to let the music in and the surroundings fade away.

A couple of girls I knew found us at some point, all three of them drunk out of their wits, and prepared with extra liquids for friends. I, being a known alcoholic, accepted quite easily their poison, and Brielle followed my lead loyally. Fine women drinking bring about eager boys thinking they'll get lucky like flies to a dead body. And before we knew it, we were surrounded by random boys, which is what I call the immature men of college who prey on drunken females in order to get their sexual fix.

These boys weren't my type, being that I'm very picky about my men when it comes to sex, but I danced with them anyways. The man gripping my waist seductively behind me at some point called into my ear wishing for my name and number. Being of the nice nature I am, I gave him the name of Brittany, and a number that was almost completely like mine except for the last two numbers. It would be pointless of him to call the number to make sure because I tell him it's in my room turned off at the moment. I hate boys who call the number as though finding out I gave a false number would guilt me into giving them my true one.

Before long, the girls I was with were swaying, and Brielle yawned into the back of her hand. I looked at the time to see a solid 2am, knowing full well there were classes the following day that they would miss if they didn't fall asleep soon. I had a bad case of insomnia myself since birth, and wouldn't be falling asleep for another good amount of hours if at all. Usually I slept four hours in a day before waking up completely energized as though I slept deeply all the time. It wasn't something I complained about too much except for when I have nothing to do but sleep.

"You want to go," I called out to Brielle, and she nodded as though relieved. I automatically grabbed a hold of her arm, and began to make a path for the door. The girls followed us, probably not even certain where they were at the moment. When we made our way down the road a bit, with the dorms in sight, I stopped.

"I'm going to take a walk," I told Brielle, knowing that I was a bit drunk as she was, and that if I didn't pay attention, we would probably have a relapse of that drunken night. Brielle nodded, not really caring what I was saying, but laughing at whatever the other girls were laughing at. "You four can make it to the dorms all right?" They all said 'yes' and waved as they started staggering towards the dorms, bursting into random laughter every once in awhile.

I moved towards the gas station, considering perhaps buying an Icee or a soda. Maybe I'd buy some chips or something as well. I walked along a small road past the University campus and into random buildings that consisted of mostly thrift stores and small restaurants, all of which were closed at the time. There were some people walking down this road to find their cars, most from the party I had just come from, but not a lot at this time of night.

I made it to the gas station easily, walking in to get an Icee… I settled for strawberry flavor. The man at the register recognized me, not finding it odd to find me here so late into the night seeing as I often came here for an Icee when I had nothing to do and needed a walk. I wished him a good night, and headed back towards the campus slowly, taking sips from my Icee luxuriously and looking up at the sky. I had to watch how I stepped in these shoes, though, so I didn't move too quickly.

While in my own thoughts of the feel of that random man's hands against my waist and Brielle's lips brushing over my skin, I heard a sudden whimpering of fear in the darkness. I stopped sharply, looking from the sky to the direction I heard the noise come from. All I could see was the darkness of an alley between a thrift store and florist shop. I took another sip of my Icee, staring into the darkness, waiting to see if perhaps I was just hearing things.

Then a clear sound of a whimper from the alley struck me, and I stopped sipping before looking down the road in hesitation. I couldn't be sure if I wanted to look at what was happening in the darkness. For all I know, it was just a couple from the party getting busy, and I didn't want to actually physically interrupt that to be left in utter awkwardness. But then it could be one of those jerks taking advantage of some innocent woman, possibly even raping that person. Not that I could physically do anything but threaten to call the cops or throw my Icee at them. I couldn't be sure if I should at least check to make sure some girl wasn't in trouble in that alley. I mean, it is an _alley_. All kinds of bad stuff happen in allies.

My morals weren't too flawed, and my bravery was strong… or perhaps my feminist side that wanted to protect my own people of same gender from idiotic males kicked in. I made a decision to sneak forward, just to make sure the girl who made the noise wasn't getting hurt. If it was something more along the lines of consensual sex, I could just sneak back and continue on my way. I didn't want to exactly be a cock blocker.

I sipped on my Icee a bit more as I slowly made my way into the darkness of the alley, towards where I could hear more fearful whimpering escape into the air. My entire body tensed, afraid of witnessing the worse and my eyes began to adjust to the darkness. The first thing I could see was what looked like a small metal dumpster, just big enough to hide behind from the view of the street. It was from this concealed spot that I heard the scuffle.

When I got closer, I saw a dark figure holding what I assumed to be the whimpering female against the wall, pressing against her form dominantly. I saw her hands beating at his back, struggling to escape, but clothing was still on the dark form so from the looks of it he hadn't started his damage just yet. And I wasn't about to let him.

"Hey," I said loudly, my heart pounding in my chest, "Leave her alone!" In a blink of an eye, the form was gone. I had my Icee up in the air, ready to hurl it at the jerk, but when I looked around he was nowhere to be seen. I still stood in my pose, turning around as though he was still standing about waiting to attack me as well.

I noticed the girl still against the wall, holding her neck and trembling in utter fear. She blinked a few times, staring at me as though in amazement, but the fear was still thick in her expression. I reached for her, and she moved her hand from her neck to grip mine. I pulled her from the alley to the light in order to inspect her.

The first thing I noticed was that she was fully clothed, but that was before I realized her hand in mine was super wet. I looked down at our clasped hands, and moved my hand from her grip to see it covered in blood.

"Oh my God," I gasped, and the girl as well looked as though she was about to faint as she reached up to hold her neck. "Where are you bleeding from?"

"I'm not sure," she said, her words slurring drunkenly, and I moved her hair, pulling her hand from her neck. The sight was scary. Blood was spilling from puncture wounds on her neck, like she had been bitten by an animal. I pressed her hand against her neck.

"Keep pressure on it," I ordered firmly, wishing Brielle was here. She was more knowledgeable with the whole wound thing being Pre-med and all. I looked around, and assumed I should probably sit the girl down. "Here, sit against the wall… do you have a cellphone?"

The girl nodded, and dug into her pant pocket for what seemed like forever before handing me her pink cellphone. I automatically opened it and called the police, claiming to have found a girl with a bite wound on her neck bleeding rather profusely. After giving our location, I stayed on the phone, bending down to check to make sure the girl stayed conscious and find information on her.

"You're going to be okay," I finally told her as the sound of an ambulance came screaming into the night, followed by two cop cars. I had mentioned that a man was here, but I couldn't quite explain how he could have made such a bite wound on the girl.

"Thank you," the girl said as the paramedics came in to help her. It felt weird to know that I possibly had just saved some girl's life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

I found myself thinking about the dark figure often after that night. I hadn't seen the girl again once she was shipped off to the hospital. In the news it merely reported that some animal had attacked her, even though I had not seen any animal around. The police easily pushed away my voicing of a dark figure in the alley, and made me breathe into some little whistle looking thing in order to see my blood alcohol level. Though it wasn't that high it still revealed that I had been drinking at age 20. It being dark and I being drunk lead them to believe that I had possibly been seeing crazy things. I had been completely sure that there was someone else in that alley, but by the next day I myself came to doubt myself.

Meanwhile, I was left with a warning against underage drinking, only being taken lightly due to the fact that I had scared away whatever had attacked the girl, possibly saving her life. People were impressed on campus, and I almost expected an award. But then it wasn't that big of a deal, so life continued pretty much how it was before.

As I sat in my Sociology class, a night course I didn't particularly enjoy, I moved into a daze, staring off into the distance. The dark figure entered my mind, and I tried to think if I could remember anything else beside him being like a shadow in the alley. It was a mystery to me to find that I could have been hallucinating, though lack of sleep does do that to people. But then I had insomnia, it wasn't something I could actually help. I had taken sleeping pills and therapy for it, but still I found myself awake at all hours of the night.

After three long hours, the course finally ended for the week, being a night class that only met once a week and I made my way back to the dorms, looking towards the general direction of the alley. I made a decision at that moment to go back to the alley though it wasn't a smart decision to me. I mean, whether it was some man or animal, it still attacked that girl and could still attack me. But something sparked my curiosity, and once I had an idea in my head, it wouldn't go away until it was satisfied.

I opened my dorm room to the unmistakable sounds of sex. My sudden entrance changed Brielle's pleasurable moans to a small scream as her and her lover scrambled to compose themselves. Meanwhile, I crossed the room, my bed being against the outer window rather than by the door where Brielle was. I made it a point not to look at them as I dropped my bag and opened my dresser to pull out Sylvia Plath's _The Bell Jar_, and opened my closet to search for a flashlight, which I found in one of my drawers.

"Evan," Brielle finally exclaimed breathlessly, and I assumed that meant they had found their composure. I closed my closet and looked over at her direction to see her and another girl I didn't recognize finish clothing themselves.

"Hey, I'm gonna go for one of my walks," I told Brielle, trying to cut through the awkwardness that results from interrupting people fucking in your room. I guessed that the time was right to go back to the alley, and perhaps when I came back Brielle and her new girlfriend would be done and entrance would be safe.

"Oh, okay," Brielle responded in an embarrassed, high-pitched voice.

I made my way back across the room, exiting rather quickly. I swear I didn't breathe easily until I was outside once again in the night. In a way I was glad Brielle was taking her sexual desires out on someone else than trying to turn me out, but it wasn't as though I wished to view such activities. I decided not to think about it any further, knowing that the future conversation I would have with her would probably be just as awkward.

I started down the street, making it to the dark alley rather quickly, but once I got there I slowed down considerably. There was no police tape or sign to ward off entrance, which there wouldn't be seeing as the crime was over a week ago. Still, I hesitated before flicking on the flashlight in my hand and shining the beam down the dark alleyway. There wasn't a thing to see in sight besides some trash bags by the back doors of the store and the metal dumpster that looked unused.

After reassuring myself of no presence about, I made my way to the dumpster, noticing how rather short it was. It looked broken, but when I reached over, there was a lid in which I pulled down to shut the top. With that, I climbed on top, partially believing the lid would fall through and I would experience a very embarrassing scene of falling into an empty small dumpster. I positioned myself on top and I looked around again, reassuring myself once again that I was alone.

Once I felt relatively safe, I opened my book, one of my favorite depressing books by Sylvia Plath, and shined a flashlight at the pages before beginning to read. I leaned against the alley wall, bending one knee up to rest the book against and letting the other leg hang from the side of the dumpster as I read. Every once in awhile I thought I'd hear something or feel someone looking at me, and I'd quickly shine my flashlight down the alley in expectation to spot the dark figure. After a bit of that, I believed that the person was a hallucination after all, and stopped paying attention to my paranoid noises.

Hours past by into the night, it moved from 9pm to 11pm to 1am in no time. My exhaustion never increased, and I was relatively comfortable in my new atmosphere, absorbing Plath's story in deep interest. The main character intrigued me; her attempts of suicide almost humored me. So much that I didn't notice a figure creeping in the darkness towards me. I continued reading without awareness of his presence, and as I flipped a page, he suddenly grabbed my arm, pulling me from the dumpster and slammed me against the wall.

My book fell to the ground open, its pages soaking in the dirt as the man pulled a knife on me, pressing it to my throat threateningly. "Give me all your money and anything else you have on you or I'll fucking kill you," the man growled into my face, his breath the smell of vomit and alcohol. I felt my breath struggle in my chest, and my heart racing as though trying to escape my body to run off without me.

"I-I-I don't," I started gasping, and the man pressed the knife harder against my neck, "I don't have anything on me!" It was quite true. I only had my school I.D., flashlight—still gripped tightly in my hand—, and the book on the ground a foot away from us. I tried to think what else of value I could possibly have, and quickly began to pull off my five dollar watch I had gotten from the thrift store in hopes that would satisfy what looked to be a hobo mugger. This is exactly what happens when you act like an idiot and read in a dark alley where a girl had recently gotten attack not a few days over a week ago.

The mugger pocketed the watch, and bared his yellow, blackening teeth at me in distaste. "Nothin' on you, huh," He breathed, "I guess that means I'll have to get something else from ya, huh?" His expression changed darkly, and he suddenly ran his nasty tongue over my chin. I turned my head in disgust; sure this was the dark figure that had been harassing that girl after all. He probably has a pet weasel with a vicious bite in his coat pocket, starving to death.

"No," I whimpered when he pressed against me, pulling on the seams of my pants.

I started to struggle, and he suddenly said, "Ah, ah, ah, I will fucking slit your throat if you don't hold the fuck still, you dumb cunt." He had the steel knife at my throat dangerously, and I felt hot tears building in my eyes in fear. I couldn't let some dirty hobo rape me in this alley. I wouldn't be able to live with the memory. I couldn't tell how other women live with it. I preferred death, and that idea was suddenly stuck in my head above the fear.

The mugger shoved his hand down my pants roughly, and I built up my courage before swinging the hand with the flashlight as hard as I could into his head, using my other hand to shove his armed hand away from my neck. The quick movement startled the mugger, and yet the quick swipe of his arm left a sting of a cut on my neck. I didn't take time to see if it hit a jugular before I ran for the street. I didn't get three feet before my ankle was grabbed, and I fell to the ground face first, busting my cheek against the cemented ground hard enough to stun me.

I came to my senses when I felt the mugger crawling on top of me from behind, and started kicking viciously in hopes of busting his face with the heel of my foot. I quickly rolled onto my back, trying to move towards the street, but the mugger climbed over my legs, soon between them to pin me down. When he was positioned just right, he had the knife just below my eyes.

"I," He yelled into my face, making me freeze, "Will cut your _fucking_ eye out if you struggle one more time." I couldn't imagine the pain that came with losing an eye, and didn't move a muscle for fear I would accidently make his knife slip into my eyeball. When he was reassured I wasn't going to struggle any further, he moved to work on removing my pants enough to satisfy him. I felt my heart screaming in my chest, and felt my breaths leave me in short, frightened gasps.

My sight moved from the man about to rape me to a shadowed figure that was slowly growing behind him. I didn't quite know what to think about the vision I was seeing, but whatever it was, I begged for it to save me with my eyes as best as possible. I didn't care if it was death coming to take me away; I just wanted it all to stop.

The figure came even closer, but the mugger didn't take notice as he pulled my pants down to reveal my panties. He reached to pull those down as well with a chuckle, but just as he gripped the seams, the dark figure bent down into view, gripping the mugger around the chest to pull him up a bit, and holding his head to the side. I peered into the face of a dark angel, and he returned the look with inhuman, intensely sharp black eyes hungrily. He smiled, revealing dangerous fangs, before viciously biting into the mugger's neck, ripping back the skin in such a painful way that the man screamed behind the dark angel's hand. Blood gushed from the wound, falling over the man's shirt easily and flowing onto my bare legs. The dark angel merely bit down again before beginning to move his head in a motion that suggested he was ingesting the blood deeply.

I could do nothing but stare in utter shock at the sight, my whole body numb from what had to be a hallucination. But it didn't go away. The blood continued flowing, the angel continued devouring it, and the mugger soon stopped moving. The moment that happened, I realized that I was probably next, and without regard for the blood on my legs, I pulled my pants up before bolting onto my feet and towards the street.

The moment I turned to even look at the street, the dark angel was in front of me, blocking my exit. But then he couldn't be an angel. Angels don't attack people like animals and devour them. He didn't look particularly cared for, either. His black hair was untamed and long enough to almost block his eyes, hiding most of his face so that I couldn't see the expression he held there. His marble white skin was flawless like an angel, though, and he was as beautiful as one. He moved faster than I could see, but the sight of his devouring of that man flashed in my mind still. I backed up rather quickly, not tearing my eyes from his face, but not feeling the same fear I had felt when the mugger had attacked me. My heart seemed nonexistent, the air gone from me, and nothing but numbness followed. I had to be dead or something.

He began moving towards me slowly, telling me he wasn't about to just fly off into the night like he had when I stopped him from killing that girl. I backed up until I tripped over the mugger's body, but quickly staggered back to my feet. At that point, I must have lost my direction, for I backed up into the alley wall, even further in the alley than I had been before. The dark angel moved closer to me, his hands at his side, and his head tilted as I waited for him to kill me.

When he was close enough to ensure no chance of my escape he moved his hand to my face swiftly. I didn't even flinch, staring into his face patiently for whatever doom was to come. He brushed a finger over what I assumed was an open cut from busting my face on the ground, and brought the blood left on his finger to his mouth carefully. After tasting me, he looked at me expectantly.

"Are you not going to fight me as you did that man," He suddenly asked in the most seductive voice I could have possibly ever heard. It didn't quite fit his attire; it was a rich voice full of power. He looked a bit… homeless; slightly animalistic.

"I would, but I'm afraid you have a great advantage over me," I replied, trying to hide the fact that I was clearly intimidated by him from my voice, but failed miserably resulting in sounding like a small school girl about to faint in fear.

"How do you figure that?" He placed an elbow against the wall behind me, moving closer while moving my face with his hand as though he were inspecting me. The question itself was ridiculous. He acted like he didn't just murder the man who tried to rob and rape me. Yet here he was, waiting for my reply as he twisted his fingers into my hair luxuriously.

"Well," I said breathlessly, trying to find my voice under his intimidating stare. I had thought my piercing dark eyes were something intense, but it was nothing compared to his. "You're clearly something more than human. I'm pretty sure fighting would be useless."

"You'd be right," he smiled, and though he was clearly dangerous, his smile intrigued me. He himself intrigued me. I was still trying to figure out if he was an angel or not. I didn't pull my eyes from his face, from his dangerous eyes to his sculpted lips and his smooth skin. Without my own permission, my hand reached up to touch his face. Before it could reach its destination, he quickly grabbed my wrist threateningly, and I partly opened my mouth in minor startlement.

"What are you," I asked before he could say anything about touching him.

"Death," He replied deviously, smiling to reveal the animalistic fangs I had seen before he had ripped the mugger's throat horribly. He moved towards my wrist, and I knew there was no point in trying to pull it away. I felt that uncomfortable drop of my heart as death moved to take me from life. But he suddenly paused, resting his lips on my wrist carefully. I waited for him to rip into my wrist, but he only held it to his mouth with his eyes closed, his hair covering the expression on his face.

"M-my name is Eva-," My voice failed me for a second, and I had to take a breath, "Evangeline. P-people call me E-evan." Suddenly, he shoved both of his arms against the wall behind me furiously, and I held my breath, holding my hands against the wall as well in expectation.

"Evangeline," he said my name so beautifully, "Leave. Don't come back here. If I find you here again, I'll kill you like I did that man. Do you understand?" I nodded slowly, unable to answer at this point. And without another word, he was gone.

I stood there for what felt like forever before I gained feeling back in my limbs. Even then, I nearly fell over myself, and I was confused when I saw that the mugger's body was no longer in the alley. I quickly picked up my flashlight and book before walking hurriedly towards my dorms, where I didn't care if Brielle was on my bed fucking three girls; at least there wasn't a rapist mugger and inhuman bloodsucker trying to kill me.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

It would be an understatement to say that after that night, the mysterious and definitely dangerous man in the alley was haunting my thoughts. Besides my sudden obsessive thoughts of his inhuman nature he had presented me, and his dark slightly depressing beauty, I was also suddenly taking notice to the increase in missing persons within this town. I found myself sitting in front of a billboard at Wal-Mart, in which posters of missing people were being posted, a new face being added at least once a week. A scan of the town newspaper reported odd animal attacks increasing from a time span of three months ago. I wondered why nobody talked about the obvious strange happenings in the town, and why I hadn't noticed it until I met _him_.

Nothing mentioned the alley in which he seemed to be collecting his prey, but then he did remove that mugger from there on that night. Perhaps he always cleaned up his mess, but was prevented when I had interrupted with the girl. I couldn't be sure, and using the term 'prey' disturbed me slightly. I wanted to know more about him; what he was and how he came to be this murderous animal. Still, I had heard his warning clearly, and I wasn't about to go prancing into that alley like some suicidal moron.

I found myself staring out the window of my dorm room in the direction of the alley one night, weeks from the night I had been attacked by the mugger. April was coming to a close, leaving a mere three weeks of the term left, meaning I would be going home or to my brother's for the summer. In reality, I was homeless, living at school and visiting the parents during the break. They were excited, due to the fact that I normally ignore them while at school. It wasn't because I disliked them or anything; I was always a bit too busy to regularly call them to talk about nothing.

Brielle was sitting at her desk, messing with her makeup in the mirror. She wasn't going anywhere, but when she was bored she liked to try out new looks. Sometimes I would watch her work on her own little art; it was quite entertaining to a bored person. We didn't have a television, due to the fact that I wasn't much into television shows or movies. I liked reading books, and even then the modern books didn't intrigue me enough. I preferred going back into historical times.

"Bri," I interrupted her styling. She finished dabbing at a line on her right eyelid with an eyeliner pencil, and looked at me expectantly. I had decided to skip the whole awkward thing and pretend I never ran into her having sex with some other girl after coming back from the mugger incident. It just didn't seem that important to me to actually worry about.

"Yeah," Brielle asked.

"I want to play a guessing game with you," I said mysteriously, "I'm going to give you a storyline, basically, and you've got to guess what creature the person is. Okay?" Brielle started to apply lipgloss over her lips in slight disinterest.

"Yeah, sure," she replied halfheartedly.

"So, say you're walking down an alley, and you get attacked by some hobo," I started, and Brielle nodded to indicate she was listening. "Then some man, the creature who isn't human, comes along and saves you. What kind of creature would you say does that?"

"Well," Brielle looked at me, "You're gonna have to give me more information. A regular person could save anyone. Like… what does he look like? Does he have gills or anything?"

I smiled at the imagery of the dark angel with gills. "No. He's beautiful, with perfect complexion, and what looks like a good body…" I was slowly making my way up to the dangerous part about him, but I wanted it to make perfect sense to Brielle so she didn't automatically claim him to be Satan or something.

"Oh, then he's an Angel," Brielle guessed. "Does he have wings?"

"No. Well, not that is visible."

"Hmmm… well how does he save you?"

"He kills the man attacking me," I said bluntly, and Brielle tisked.

"Not an Angel, then. Maybe a fallen one. How does he kill the man?"

"He moves faster than you can see. And he has sharp teeth, which he uses to bite into the man's throat, not only killing him, but devouring him as—"

"Vampire," Brielle suddenly interrupted, "Easy. You should've just said the whole teeth and drinking blood thing, and this conversation would've been over thirty minutes ago." She chuckled at my startled expression.

"Vampire?"

"Gorgeous, murderous, amazing strength, beyond sight speed, and blood drinking… definitely vampire. And let me guess, seductive eyes, almost hypnotizing, perfect hair, rich most likely with a thing for depressed little white girls," She continued, "Just like off of Twilight, haha."

I hadn't ever watched _Twilight_, nor really meant to. I hadn't read it either, being that I hate modern novels and I don't exactly like scientific fiction nor fantasy genres. My knowledge of vampires only went as far as Dracula, blood sucking, old fashion, and horrifying. But I couldn't tell why the fangs wouldn't have warned me of his nature automatically. I mean what else is signified as fang-bearing bloodsuckers? I was nothing more than an idiot.

"Well… that's true, but one difference is the clothing. He looks homeless, ratty clothing and unkempt hair, it was kind of depressing," I told Brielle, before remember that this was supposed to be a hypothetical story. "Well, to the person being saved by him."

"Maybe he's a depressed vampire. You know Louis in Anne Rice's book hated being a vampire, he at some point was moving about sewer pipe eating rats and looking downright pitiful," Brielle explained to me easily, "Does he end up killing you?"

I thought for a minute. Maybe he was depressed and I hadn't noticed. But then he didn't look like he hated being a vampire when he was killing that mugger. I just couldn't be sure. "No," I finally answered, "Nah, he let her go."

"See? He fed on a bad man instead on the innocent girl. Depressed vampire. Do I win a prize," she asked, stopping in her face dabbling to smile brightly at me. I laughed, throwing a pillow at her. "Hey! Geez! Why do you want to know about vampires, anyway? I thought you preferred stuff about like… Queen Elizabeth or the Civil War or other boring stories like that."

I shrugged, "I think I might broaden my reading, maybe check out the fantasy genre."

"You're like the only person I know who reads," Brielle teased. She suddenly stood up and looked about. "Let's go get an Icee." The suggestion startled me. The last time I had went for an Icee was the night I first saw the dark figured vampire, and I wasn't planning on going anywhere near that area for awhile now. But here Brielle wanted to just waltz by like it was nothing.

"What? Why," I asked nervously.

"Because I want one. And I don't want to go by myself. I could be attacked or something, like that chick you saved that one night," Brielle stated shortly, moving to get some money from her purse like this wasn't the stupidest thing to do.

"Exactly, why risk it," I continued. "Besides I'm not dressed to go anywhere." This second part was a lie, seeing as it wasn't like I had changed into my pajamas yet. I was wearing a white spaghetti-strap summer dress, feeling a bit girly today.

"You look pretty. Quit being weird and let's go," Brielle suddenly was out the door, intent on going with or without me. I didn't want her slipping into that alley, resulting in her death; therefore I followed her rather reluctantly. She smiled happily when she saw me following, slowing down for me to catch up. The things I do for her…

We spent most of the walk with Brielle talking on and on about whatever it was people were talking about around campus. She could have been talking to herself for all I was concerned, being that most of the walk was spent with me wanting to turn around every step closer we got to passing the alley. I had a plan to just run past the opening like I was being chased by the devil, dragging Brielle over my shoulder with sudden adrenaline strength.

But instead of speeding up as we approached the area of the alley, we started slowing down considerably. I positioned myself near the road, leaving Brielle between me and the walls of the buildings. She continued talking as though nothing was different to her, until finally we reached the entrance of the alley. I was completely intent on continuing past, but suddenly Brielle stopped talking and walking to look towards the darkness of the alley.

"Come on," I snapped, making a motion toward the direction we were supposed to be headed.

"I think I see something," Brielle said in a daze. Exactly why a person would want to move into a dark deadly alley just because they saw something was beyond me, but Brielle didn't make a move to follow me. She instead stared at nothing in the alley. I looked towards the alley, seeing nothing, and back at Brielle.

"Seriously, let's go," I ordered firmly, "I'm going… seriously… right now… I'm leaving… bye." I started walking away in hopes that Brielle would be afraid of being left by herself in the dark street. When I didn't hear her following me, I turned around to see she wasn't in view anymore. I froze. She wasn't standing anywhere in the street, actually, but it was over my head as to any possibility of her actually going into a dark alley by herself. She was relatively chicken. She would never just go and do that, especially knowing some other girl got attacked by an animal in there.

But then there was nowhere else reasonable she would have gone in the few seconds I had looked away. My stomach fell at the knowledge that he was probably in there right now, killing my roommate and best friend. Then again he had warned me of my death if I ever went into that alley again. Still, this was my best friend and roommate, I couldn't just walk away. I took a deep breath, and plowed my way into the darkness.

I moved more and more into the alley not seeing Brielle or the vampire in sight, but then as I continued I saw a dark figure holding what I knew was Brielle against the wall. All my self-concerned disappeared and I ran the rest of the way to their location before gripping the man by his arm.

"No," I ordered, my voice strong and echoing through the alley, "No! Let her go!"

He suddenly stopped moving, and I heard an animalistic growl develop from him. He suddenly moved from Brielle, looking at me with blood smeared over his lips and chin. "I thought I smelled you," He said darkly, and I let go of his arm fearfully at the demented expression on his face. I looked at Brielle, who was basically near unconsciousness and probably in another world at the moment.

"She's my best friend," I said desperately, not sure how to convince him to let her go. "Please." I mostly expected him to snap my neck and continue to kill Brielle, but he only glared at me with distaste. Finally, he pulled Brielle to him, biting his own finger before smearing his blood over the bite wound on her neck, and mock bowed to me before gesturing towards the swaying Brielle as though presenting her to me.

I didn't even hesitate before grabbing Brielle and practically started dragging her out of the alley. It wasn't any different from dragging Brielle to our room when she was drunk, except this time I was actually concerned for her life. Nobody looked at us weird as I shoved her into the elevator with me, and pulled her to our room. They assumed she was trashed.

When we reached our room, Brielle was starting to talk more, and it made me feel better about her condition. "Evvvan," She murmured, "Man, was I drugged or something?" She hit herself in her face trying to rub the sense back into her head. I laid her down on her bed, moving her hair to look at the blood on her shoulder. I quickly moved over to get a wash cloth, running out of the room to get it wet, and coming back in to Brielle groaning uncomfortably.

I carefully wiped at the blood on her neck, not wanting to make the wound start flowing freshly seeing as at the moment the blood flow looked to have stopped. But then when I wiped away a lot of the blood, I noticed that there was no wound. I stared at her neck in disbelief before continuing to wipe at the blood as though the wound were just hiding. Still, the more I cleaned it up, the more the fact that there was no longer a bite wound on her neck seemed true. This somewhat relieved me, and I let Brielle roll over to go to sleep, assured she'd probably be fine after all. It must have been when he smeared his blood on the bite. Maybe vampires have healing abilities, I didn't know. Either way, I was determined to go back to that alley and confront him. Brielle's explanation of the depressed vampire theory made me feel safer about going near him. Perhaps he didn't like killing people after all…

With this new idea in my head, I took a good look at Brielle, and exited the room.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

I moved into the alley slowly, looking around for a hint of his presence, but it was dead quiet and empty so far. I continued down the alley, listening to my surroundings carefully. Perhaps he had gone somewhere else to kill old people or something, I couldn't be sure. Then again that one night I had read for hours without seeing him until that mugger lured him from his hiding. Something told me he was still here, watching me probably. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest nervously; still not sure this was much of a good idea.

No matter how hard I listened to my surroundings, when I reached deep into the alley, I suddenly turned around to find him standing directly behind me. His sudden presence startled me, making me gasp and automatically regret coming here, but I quickly smothered my fear and pushed forward my courage, looking him directly in his face. He no longer had blood smeared over his mouth, but still looked rather homeless. This didn't do anything to remove his mysteriously gorgeous appearance, though. He still looked like a dark angel to me.

"Are you here to dictate who I can and cannot eat," he asked sarcastically, not making a move to attack me just yet. It took all my power not to start moving away from him as though to escape. I held my feet solid where I was, determined to confront him about his nature.

"No. I wanted to thank you," I said quietly, twisting my hands at my side nervously, "For not killing Brielle. She can be some work, but she's importa…" My voice faltered when he suddenly moved closer to me so quickly that I didn't actually see him move. I quickly forgot what I had been saying, and merely concentrated on not backing away from his presence.

"Killing people… not killing them, it really doesn't concern me," he stated darkly, holding his hands behind his back almost teasingly, looking from my face down to my dress and back to my eyes deliberately slowly. "Thanking me is pointless if not unintelligent."

Suddenly, the air was knocked out of me as I was shoved against the building wall. Before I could gain sense of anything, the dark angel… vampire was pressed against me, moving his hand from my waist down to my thigh, pushing my dress up seductively to grip my ass and push me against him almost painfully. His lips moved over my jaw line to my neck hungrily, and I gasped, holding a hand up in confusion before pushing it against him.

"Don't," I said breathlessly, gasping when he nipped at my shoulder teasingly, "Don't…"

"Don't what," he asked suddenly angrily, moving to shove my shoulders against the wall. I held both of my hands up almost in surrender, trying to gain my breath back. "Don't kill you? I don't understand you humans. I show a bit of mercy and let you run free, and yet you go running back like a moron. You want death, you're practically begging for it, and I'm happy to give it to you."

"I just want to know who you are," I blurted, trying to think of something that would spare my life, and only coming up with this pitiful excuse.

"Why," He spat darkly, "What idiot wants to know about someone who can kill them in a heartbeat?"

"Because… you haven't… and you seem unhappy," I replied lamely. He hesitated, suddenly peering at me like I was some alien life force to him, and let go of my shoulders to rest a hand on the wall behind me slowly.

"Why should I be unhappy," He asked curiously, "I kill whoever I want whenever I want, and the blood is amazing. Some are better than others, but none are bad. It's warm, thick, and always satisfying. I have power to overcome anything, a chance at immortality, why would anyone be unhappy with that?" There was something sarcastic in his questioning, but it confused me. I looked at his face as though something in his expression would help me understand what he was saying.

"All you do is kill," I responded shortly.

"All you see me do is kill because you're too stupid to know when to keep your nose out of other people's business… always trying to be a hero or something," he countered with somewhat of a sneer. "You think you can stop me from killing some innocent person? From killing you? You think you're stronger than me?"

His inquiry was building rage into his words, and I quickly said, "No… No, I'm not. I know that." I widened my eyes as he bent even closer to me, twisting his fingers through my hair mockingly. I really couldn't tell what his intentions were anymore.

"You don't flinch when I touch you. You don't break eye contact… I'm starting to wonder if you're partly mentally impaired," he stated thickly, moving his gaze to the strands of hair around his fingers. "Evangeline… what to do with Evangeline."

I opened my mouth, closing it before changing my mind once again and opening it to ask, "What's your name?" I assumed vampires had names. I mean, dogs have names. Stars have names. Everything has a name.

"Hold still," he suddenly said, wrapping his arms around my waist to pull me close to him. Before I knew it, the world had disappeared, and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't explain the feeling, except that I was suffocating, and I could not move at all. And then suddenly the world came back. I was let go and instead of finding my footing, my eyes lost focus and I felt myself falling a mile to my death.

Before I could hit any ground, I was pulled back up, and I reached up to my face to make sure I was actually still in my body. It seemed to take a minute before I could feel close to normal, and I looked around to see I was in a completely different place. I was shoved against a wall of a house. I blinked to see my vampire angel looking at me with a bit of determination in his eyes.

"You want to know who I am," He asked darkly, pulling me away from the wall to look at the house we were positioned outside. He closed his eyes, tilting his head to the side in the direction of the house, and lifted a finger in the air. I watched his hand as he lifted up a second finger, followed by a third. He opened his eyes, looking at me shortly before heading to the door of the house. I hesitated, but followed after him. He knocked sharply and waited.

The door opened to a man who looked mildly confused. "Hello," he greeted us, looking from me to the vampire next to me. The vampire moved closer to the entrance, placing a hand on the threshold, blocking me from view as he got the full attention of the man.

"Invite me in," he suddenly ordered.

"Don't," I said, trying to get in view, "Don't inv-"

"Come in," the man said oddly. I felt a sudden dread, knowing this could not be a good thing. The vampire moved into the house easily before turning around to look at me deviously.

"Quit being rude, Evangeline, we were clearly invited to stay for awhile," he told me. I hesitated, but followed behind him with my head low almost guiltily. I couldn't be sure what the vampire was going to do, or what he was trying to prove. Obviously he could control people or something in the way he got that man to just invite him in with a simple request.

"I am a killer," he said, looking towards a flight of stairs that probably headed up to rooms where other people of the house were at. The man who had invited us in closed the door behind me, not altogether concerned about the statement the vampire had just made. "My name is not important. It doesn't make me who I am. What makes me who I am is blood… death… the thirst and pleasure of it." Suddenly, he turned and bit into the man's neck, and I heard a loud snap as he twisted the man's head and let him drop to the ground. My heart started pounding furiously, and I backed up only to lead me further into the house due to the fact that there was now a dead body blocking the front door.

"To know me is to know the pain and suffering that result in death," he said, looking at me with blood smeared around his mouth. His eyes were even brighter, a blood thirst in them. He moved closer to me, and I had to remind myself not to back away from him. He lifted up three fingers, and lowered one, leaving two up. It suddenly dawned on me that he was counting the number of people left in the house besides us.

He pointed to the left, and a woman moved through a door that probably led to a living room. "Richard," she asked, pausing when she saw us, and her eyes moved towards the dead man on the floor. She gasped, beginning to back away in horror, when the vampire grabbed her faster than I could see and slammed her head furiously against a nearby desk. Even though she was probably dead within the first impact, he did it two more times before throwing her bleeding corpse on the ground.

At this point, I felt a scream starting to build in my lungs, and I ran for the door, not caring about going near the dead body blocking it. Before I got two steps in, the vampire was in front of me, smiling evilly at my sudden horror. He suddenly gripped my hands, smearing the blood on his along my own palms as though trying to bathe my hands in it. Then he lifted up one finger darkly, pointing it behind me. I twisted around in fear, seeing a little boy at the end of the stairs sleepily. I tried to find my voice to tell him to run, but my throat closed and my breath left me.

"Mom… dad," the boy asked in a small voice, looking at the two dead bodies on the floor.

The vampire suddenly moved behind the boy, bending down to grip his shoulders carefully. "They're dead," he said to the boy bluntly. The boy started to whimper, on the verge of crying on the spot, and the vampire wrapped his arms around him in a comforting way. "Don't worry. I know who did it, and I'll tell you so you can tell the cops, okay?"

"Really?" The boy asked sadly. I was shaking in fear of what the vampire had planned next.

"That lady right there did it," the vampire said, pointing at me with a small smile of amusement, "She's a murderer, completely evil. But I don't think she's going to let you tell the cops about her." He made the boy look at him with a frown. "No, I think she's going to kill you, too." He moved his hand around the shaking boy's neck threateningly.

"No," I gasped quickly, "No, stop. I get it, you're a killer. Please don't hurt him."

The vampire suddenly looked furious. "You get it, huh? What you don't get is you do not control me; I will kill whoever I want, whenever I want. You can't stop it," he snapped, and I closed my eyes, putting my hands over my ears before doubling over and willing myself to be somewhere else. The vampire watched me dully, before biting into the boy's shoulder, and leaving him on the ground with his parents. I suddenly was pulled from the ground, and held close to him before the familiar feeling of suffocation covered me, along with the inability to move.

When the world stopped around me, I still didn't open my eyes, trying to block out the family death from my memory. There wasn't anyone touching me any longer, but I continued to stand completely still, feeling as though I had been frozen into an ice sculpture. When finally I did move, I twisted my hands to feel the drying blood on my hands, and I opened my eyes to look at my hands. Automatically, I started rubbing them around the cloth of my white dress, suddenly frantic to get the blood off of my fingers. I knew there was probably blood on my shoes and over my ears as well, but I focused on trying to clear my hands first. After a good ten minutes or so of attempting this, I found that the blood wasn't clearing from my hands but rather spreading onto my dress as well. Yet I still continued to try.

He suddenly grabbed my hand, pulling it away from my dress to look at it almost curiously. "My name," He said, tracing his fingertips over the palm of my hand easily, "is Briar." I suddenly looked up from the stain on my dress to his face, looking for a sign that he was clearly joking with me. He only looked at me simply, without any expression on his face to say otherwise.

I moved my gaze to my surroundings. It was also dark here, and it looked as though I was inside a large abandoned building with no windows or rooms. It looked like a warehouse or storage building of some sort. I looked around, focusing my attention on Briar, who was watching my expression with slight amusement.

"Where are we," I asked quietly.

"This is where I stay when it's daylight. And you're to stay here until I'm bored enough of you to kill you or entertained enough to turn you, whichever comes first," He stated matter-of-factly. I felt a sudden terror in my chest, and I paused to gain control of myself.

"Please," I was suddenly begging, tears beginning to burn in my eyes, "I can't. I have my family and friends… school is almost over, and my finals are coming up. I have my whole life… please. I'll never bother you again. You can… you can kill whoever you want. I won't go near that alley or… or you anymore, I promise. Just please let me go." His grip on my hand tightened to a point where sharp pains were moving up my arm, and I winced.

"You can decide," Briar snapped, dropping my hand painfully, "Stay here or die. It's up to you." I backed up, spinning around to look around at the warehouse dreadfully. Both of the options weren't pleasant to me, not surprisingly, but I couldn't be sure which of the two would be worse. To die or to witness more and more families and innocent people dying with me powerless to stop it…

The realization came over me that either way I would not see my family, my parents and two brothers, or my friends back at home or at school. I dropped to the floor, putting my face in my hands to sob as though I were in mourning for myself. I wasn't one who usually just started crying at whatever was happening to me, but then I never had to witness a string of murder or have my life threatened so much by some inhuman creature.

"Ugh," Briar suddenly said from next to me, "Please tell me you decided death. I hate criers."

"Shut up," I snapped, wiping at my face, turning to look at him to see he looked relatively surprised. "Go ahead and kill me. I'd rather die than be stuck here with you." And another sob escaped me at the realization at what I had just said. I swallowed my sobs, gaining control of my breathing before sitting there waiting for my neck to be snapped or bitten or however Briar would decide to get rid of me after all.

He snatched my arm firmly, pulling me from the floor and across the room to a door. He opened it angrily. "Go," He growled, shoving me out the door before closing it behind me, leaving me by myself out on a sidewalk. I hesitated, looking behind me at what indeed was a warehouse with a sign in front that said 'No Trespassing'. Then I looked down the sidewalk, not quite knowing which direction would lead me back to my campus, but took the chance to get lost. I was free, and I had never felt so relieved in my life.


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

The only way I could explain how I moved throughout the next few days would be nothing short of a haze of depression. When I had found my dorms after leaving Briar and his insanity, I had quickly stripped from my bloody outfit and had taken a long shower to wash away all evidence of that night. I threw away that dress, wishing to forget that night as a whole, but it seemed as though every time I turned around there was a reminder. Usually it was the color red or someone screaming in the distance (usually happily that I confused for fear), but then also came the news story of a family slaughter in which I watched with complete guilt. Even seeing Brielle reminded me of her being bitten and healed miraculously.

I refused point blank to go anywhere but to class and back to my dorms, steering clear of any chance of gaining contact with the vicious vampire that stalked this town. But it was the end of the term, and dead days were coming up. The campus was wild with last minute studying, homework, projects, parties, parties, and more parties.

Brielle was going through a period of utter stress seeing as she found out she was flunking a vital science course, and so for the weekend she moved herself to her home in order to focus more on her actual studies than the parties she had been tempted into. I made it a point not to visit home unless it was breaks such as Christmas or summer. But I kept to myself in my room. That is, until my depression was interrupted by frantic knocking on my door.

I automatically felt fear, assuming the dorm was under attack by some vampire, and I was going to have to witness the demise of all these people I knew and didn't know here. But then I gained control over my sudden insanity, realizing this was improbable. So I moved to open the door to find two of my college friends with their boyfriends all dressed up and giddy at my doorway.

"Evan," Jessica, the blonde, exclaimed, reaching out to embrace me happily. "Girl, listen. I know you're having end-of-term depression, I can tell by how you've suddenly refused to read any of your messages or contact any of us in any form. Soooo…" She gestured to her pack of friends behind her.

Melinda, the rather intimidating female of the group by her tall stature, dark skin, and threatening look of boredom always plain on her face, decided to shove Jessica aside to finish her speech for her. "We're kidnapping you," she said sharply, "Get your shit together, you're coming to Club Benz with us." I stood there for a moment, staring at the four bluntly.

"No," I finally said, "I don't have the money for it anyway." I lied.

"Don't feed us that bullshit, like the great Delaney daughter is broke," Melinda laughed, though the comment was rather offensive, the only reason why it didn't piss me off was because she was in all actuality a pretty good friend. "Nah, but come on, Evan. If you want, I'll pay your way in. We just want to hang out with the great Evs before we go home for the summer. You know Jessica here is even graduating this term so this could be the last time you see her!" Melinda wrapped a loving arm around Jessica's shoulder, pulling her into better view, before they both smiled pleadingly at me.

I hesitated, already feeling myself give in to their pleading. Great. "Fine," I finally caved, "Give me a minute to put on a dress or something." It was a reasonable thing to ask seeing as I was in pajamas looking rather pitiful.

"No problem, we'll chill out here for ya," Jessica squealed happily. I half-smiled before shutting the door and moving to my closet to pick out my dress. I decided on a low cut black dress that I saved specifically for clubbing anyway. I pulled my hair down from the simple ponytail, messing around with it so that it flowed nearly perfectly over my shoulders in waves. After messing with my makeup and pulling on some black heels, I opened the door to cat calls from my friends.

"Woo! Let's party," Jessica called out, probably pissing off a lot of girls who were actually still in the dorms most likely trying to study or sleep. We all moved as a group to the elevator and out the exit, heading to Club Benz. This was a club that was just outside of city limits, out of the way of civilization, and from first glance it looked like a large metal garage. Ben was a man who owned the club, and instead of just calling it Ben's club, he decided to switch it about a bit, adding a 'z' at the end to give it a sort of twist. Some people would refer to it as Benny's, but most preferred Club Benz.

We showed up at the club around 1:30 am, being that the club didn't even open until midnight, and didn't close until 6am. Based on how we used to do this in past events, we would be here until the closing, and designated driver would be doomed to have to suffer in a car of sleeping persons on the drive back without passing out themselves and causing a kill-all wreck. One of the men in our group was nominated as designated driver, which he begrudgingly accepted under the condition of not having to pitch in for drink and gas money. I overruled, saying I would drive, due to the fact that I was not going to drink anyway. I was bluntly dubbed hero by the group, and we continued exiting the car to enter the club, the majority of the group happy.

At the front gate, we were all scanned for IDs, in which I wasn't allowed a wristband due to not being drinking age. This was then preceded by my getting molested by security, who _thoroughly _patted me down for alcohol and weapons. After a comment on my apparently sexiness, I was allowed through the door, where I waited for the rest of my group to follow. The club was already filling with people I didn't know, being that most of the campus students were attending parties being thrown by the Greeks of the school. The free alcohol is probably what drew them to those parties over the club, besides the admittance being a mere 3 dollars, free for women. I preferred it this way, being that I wouldn't have to suffer through the usual social environment. Now I could do whatever I wished without worrying about seeing these same people in class the following day.

I couldn't be sure at what point I lost track of my group. Sometime into the night, they went to get more drinks while I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, I couldn't spot them at the bar. I would have moved on to find them across the crowd, but instead I decided to immerse myself within the dancing crowd. At first I wondered if anyone was watching me or planning on attempting to molest me while I dance, but then my self-consciousness slowly faded as I closed my eyes and danced to the music being played extremely loudly over the multiple speakers surrounding the club. Occasionally, Benny the club owner would speak over the music, introducing the next song or talking about free night Fridays before 1:00am and etc.

At some point, there was a sudden horrifying scream that hung over the music, and the club hesitated as a whole. The dancing stopped just as the music was halted overhead. Before anyone could find the source of the now quiet scream, a very different voice moved through the speakers.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the voice said, and for some reason it sent chills through me. "Please enjoy the following music. It shall be your last." This was followed by a deep chuckle, and a song started. There was confusion as some people assumed it was a joke and started to dance to music while others moved away from the dance floor. I stayed in my spot within the thick of the crowd, not sure what exactly to do, except that I should probably find my friends.

There was a sudden burst of screaming from multiple people at all places of the club, and suddenly people who weren't even sure what was going on started screaming as well. People started running towards the exits, but more screaming followed as people tripped over each other, and those at the doors found they were blocked and unable to escape. I couldn't tell what exactly was going on, and I turned to see a woman bleeding from a gash on her neck as she staggered to the dance floor and dropped to the floor, no longer moving.

I looked around, my eyes confused by the flashing light as people started dropping, blood spilling everywhere. I ran from the dance floor, ducking low as though perhaps gunshots were being randomly set off into the air, but there weren't any sounds of gunshots in the club; only the music and screaming. I made my way under a table where two other people had also moved to, clutching my hands over my ears in horror and confusion. As I looked around from under the table, I could still see people being thrown viciously against things or just dropping dead from random wounds.

While the screaming was horrifying, as time went by, I noticed it was getting quieter. And soon it was completely silent besides the music. I couldn't be sure if this meant people had found an escape or if they all were dying. One of the people under the table with me must have been thinking along the escape theory, for he suddenly ran from under the table. He made perhaps two steps before someone covered in blood smiling stopped in front of him, and without hesitation, they bit into his throat and ripped away a nice chunk of his neck before letting him drop to the ground with the rest of the corpses. The girl who had stayed under the table with me screamed. I closed my eyes, knowing she had just given away our position to what was definitely a vampire.

After the girl had finished her sudden scream, the music went quiet as well. "We forgot a table," the smiling vampire said, and it alerted me that there was possibly more than one vampire there with him. When the girl was snatched from under the table, my belief was indeed confirmed as a female vampire shoved the girl, who was half-screaming and sobbing hysterically, to the smiling vampire. He looked at the female vampire before saying, "You can have her if you want." With that, I winced as the female vampire bit into the girl viciously, causing a last dying scream into the quiet club. Then the girl went limp and was shoved on the bloody dance floor.

I gasped as my arm was also snatched by a third vampire, and I was pulled roughly from under the table. My arm was let go and the vampire instead gripped my wrists before pulling me close to him. He was also covered in blood, his sharp blue eyes smiling happily at a last prey found among the dead. I didn't scream or try to struggle from him, but instead stared into his face openly, trying to see past the blood that covered his features.

"This one's brave," he called to the other vampires, and he revealed his fangs as he laughed, turning to look at me demonically. He reached to mark what felt like an 'X' on my cheek with blood, but I didn't move as he did so. "She doesn't even flinch at the face of death."

"Bring her over here," the smiling vampire ordered curiously, and I was pulled to the other two vampires. I heard footsteps from behind us as well, assuring me there was no doubt a fourth vampire here as well. I nearly slipped over the blood on the floor as I stepped over corpses, being led to the dance floor quite roughly. I was shoved in front of the smiling vampire, who looked at me closely. Then on a spur of the moment, he snatched out and gripped my shoulders.

He lifted a hand up to put his thumb against the same cheek the 'X' had been smeared on. I heard the female vampire chuckle in amusement, but didn't break eye contact with the smiling vampire. His eyes were also an intensely sharp colored brown, staring into my eyes as though a look could pierce into my skull and kill me. I felt a sudden sting and he pressed his thumbnail into my cheek, and a streak of blood moved down my cheek. My breath shortened, but I still didn't break eye contact, trying to block out the burning sensation against my cheek.

"Do you think she's retarded," The female vampire asked in slight wonder. The vampire moved his thumb away from my cheek, putting it into his mouth before moving closer to me. He lightly took a hold of my head, moving my face to the side as he bent over to trail his tongue from my jaw to the wound on my cheek carefully, and I hummed uncomfortably.

"Mmmm, I don't know," he said once he lifted his head from my cheek. "What do you think, Briar?" My heart almost stopped at the name. I blinked, turning my head to see the fourth vampire, who looked very hesitant at the sight of me. It was obvious by his expression that Briar hadn't expected to see me here. But the sight of him didn't bring me any hope of surviving this slaughter. After all, he obviously wasn't above killing people, seeing as he was just as blood covered as the other three vampires.

"I think she likes him," the female vampire sneered, and the three vampires all had a minor laugh at that statement. I was suddenly twisted around to face Briar's direction completely, and the smiling vampire moved my hair to reveal my neck. I had trouble breathing once I felt his fingers tracing over my skin slowly.

"Here, Briar, she's yours," he suddenly said, backing away from me easily. "Go ahead and kill her so we can burn this place down." I looked around to see the three vampires all standing back in amusement, waiting for Briar to finish up the job. I moved my gaze from them to the direction where Briar had been, but gasped when he was suddenly directly in front of me dangerously. Without pausing, he reached to me, pulling me close to him as he moved my head to the side.

I closed my eyes when he bent down to my bare neck, and whimpered at the sudden flash of pain when his fangs bit into my flesh, though not as viciously as I had seen him do when he killed the family or anyone else really. Instead of feeling a drawing of blood from the bite, I could feel the wet of my own blood smear over my neck and down my chest. Before I could notice anything else, I felt Briar's fingers over my spine, and with a sharp pain, everything went black.


	6. Chapter 6

**Six**

I woke up to find myself in my very own bed within the campus dorm room. For a moment, I merely stayed still, looking at the sunlight shining on the wall of the familiar room. It crossed my mind that perhaps I had just had the worst nightmare in my life, but when I reached for my neck, I felt the now familiar dry blood on my skin. I pushed the blanket from me to reveal my black clubbing dress, and the realization that I hadn't been dreaming rushed over me. I once again reached for my neck, not feeling any pain where I was bitten, nor finding any puncture wounds. I moved to touch my cheek to find there wasn't even a scratch there either, though the feel of dried blood was left over.

I once again found myself throwing away a blood-soaked dress, not sure where all the blood on me had come from, and bathing myself from what was left over my skin. I ran the warm water through my hair to find red flowing from the strands as though it were dye. The sudden thought of Jessica and Melinda crossed my mind, and a deep sadness struck through me. Before anything more could be thought of, I found myself sobbing at the sight of the bloody water on the shower floor. I started scrubbing my skin raw, crying hysterically before I gave up, covered myself with a towel, and retired to my room in order to curl into my blankets and never rise again.

When I walked into the room, I finally noticed my window was wide open. I hesitated before looking around my room almost in fear that Briar had jumped up four floors to reach my window and finish me off. But the daylight assured me of my safety. I quickly shut the window and receded to my bed, covering myself from seeing my surroundings. Then I found myself continuing to cry. I wanted to stop, but something inside ached… it felt more like guilt more than anything.

I heard the dorm room open slowly, but I didn't care. A movement on my bed was followed by the blanket being lifted from over my head. Brielle was sitting there, tears in her eyes as she looked at me sadly. Without confusion, she said, "You heard about the club fire." And suddenly I reached up to hug her tightly.

"Melinda and Jessica were there," I told her, and suddenly she was crying as well.

"They haven't identified any bodies," She told me, but I already knew they were dead. I didn't need to wait to hear of it. I was supposed to be dead. It seemed so unlikely that I was here in my room after all that had happened last night. "They're saying it was arson. Somebody blocked off all the exits and burned everything down. Can you believe it?"

Classes were a nightmare the following day. Names were being listed and people were finding people they knew and loved had died in the fire. Only I knew it hadn't been a fire that had killed everyone in that club. Four vampires… but I couldn't go around telling everyone that. Still, the fact that there was more than just one vampire in this town startled me, and now I felt paranoid. Anyone could be a vampire at night now. Nowhere was safe anymore.

Melinda and Jessica were identified as two victims within the fire that day, and Brielle was all types of a mess. I couldn't stand being around her, even though I knew a good friend would be there holding her. The guilt hurt me, knowing everyone's fate and being unable to console anyone. I stayed outside on a bench by the pond near the library when my classes were done and I didn't feel like seeing Brielle in the room. The sky quickly turned dark, but I merely stared at the pond thoughtfully.

When finally I noticed how dark it had gotten, I decided to head back to my room in hopes that Brielle had possibly fallen asleep. I stood up, looking at the campus around me to see it empty of life, and made my way around the pond towards the direction of my room. I crossed between two campus buildings, walking into a stretch of lawn squared off by benches and sleeping flowers.

As I moved through the stretch, I suddenly heard whistling not too far off in the distance. My now paranoid side made me tense up automatically, and I quickened my steps. There was small laughter, followed by more whistles, and I heard a man say quietly, "Hey! Hey, you!" This was followed by even more laughter, and I moved around the next building rather quickly, thinking the men were following me and probably planning on killing me. Why had I stayed outside in the dark?

When I looked around the corner, I saw no one had followed me after all, and took a deep breath of relief. I turned around, steering away from the sidewalk and straight through a small forest of trees that would lead me a straight line to my dorms. I got maybe halfway through the trees before I suddenly felt someone was following me. I hesitated, putting all my courage to turning around to see if anyone was behind me.

I turned to find once again that no one was behind me. I counted to ten before turning back towards my dorms. Automatically I gasped in surprised when I was suddenly blocked by a dark form. Briar put a finger over his lips mockingly, looking around carefully. I froze when he suddenly moved close to me, moving my hair to bare my neck slowly, before he smiled at me with satisfaction.

"You didn't kill me," I told him quietly.

"I noticed," He replied.

"I thought you were going to."

"I considered it."

"But you bit me."

"Only a little bit."

I bit my lip uncertainly. "The other vampires…" I didn't quite know where I was going with that statement, but Briar seemed to understand. He was still standing rather close to me, but not in the threatening way he usually had been. I peered at his face openly, waiting for whatever explanation I was looking for, and he finally smirked at me.

"They were some… old friends of mine," He suddenly paused. "Did you say vampires?"

For the first time in awhile I smiled, even if it was a small one. "I assume that's what you are… the fangs, blood, and daylight thing kind of gave it away," I replied, slightly amused that he seemed startled by the name.

Something passed over his face that I couldn't quite recognize, but he didn't say anything else about it. "After I faked your death, we doused the place with flammable fluids, and I said my farewell to them. Once they lit up the place, I went back inside and grabbed you… took you back to your school, and left you in your room. As far as they're concerned, you're as dead as the rest of those humans in there."

"How'd you know where my room was," I asked bluntly.

"I followed you sometimes," he replied as though what he just admitted was in actuality quite normal. I felt self-conscious at this comment, thinking back to if maybe I had done anything embarrassing that he may have seen while stalking me. He watched me for a minute as I looked down at my feet awkwardly. "I only followed you mostly after that first night. I was going to suffocate you in your sleep because I thought you had seen me… but I changed my mind." It slightly disturbed me to know that I could have gone to sleep one night and never woke up. But then the wait for me to sleep would probably have been awhile.

Before I could make a response to that, he interrupted slowly, "Actually, I've been changing my mind a lot lately. I came here to kill you, but I'm not sure if I will. I'm never sure if I'll kill you or not, but I consider it all the time. I probably should just kill you…" I was now looking at him cautiously, and my hand involuntarily moved to my neck in memory of his bite. Of course, he noticed the movement, and smiled before reaching to move my hand from my neck.

"You know, I can make it feel good," Briar told me seductively, moving to bend closer to my bare neck. I remember the pain when he had bit me and almost involuntarily struggled to run away, but I contained my fearful urge, braving the chance that he wasn't going to bite me.

"I have my doubts," I responded timidly.

"I can," He said, brushing his lips over my neck carefully. "It's all in the mindset when I do it. Some places feel even better than others. Like here." He nipped at a part of my neck that sent chills through me. "Or here." He brushed his hands over my breasts lightly, causing a small gasp to escape me. "And especially…" He moved a hand to my inner thigh, and I suddenly backed up quickly. He didn't try to stop me from moving, merely crossing his arms in amusement at the expression of startlement on my face. Automatically, I felt a blush rise up to my cheeks.

"I've got to go," I told him nervously, moving towards the dorms rather quickly. Of course, Briar followed behind me, chuckling dementedly into the night.

"I can't believe the brave Evangeline is actually running away from me," He said to the dark, as though an audience was watching us. "I threaten her, kill people in front of her, attack her, and she stands strong. But one little touch and poof… she's gone." He laughed deeply to add to his mocking manner, and I couldn't help but notice how sexy his laugh was.

I continued walking away. "I am not running away from you. I'm merely walking… at a speedy pace… the opposite direction you happen to be." When I heard no more noises from him, I turned my head to see he was no longer following behind me. I had reached the outer edge of the patch of tree, and the dorms were in view at this point.

"I just wanted to warn you," Briar suddenly said from his spot against a tree just ahead. He moved to walk in pace with me. "You need to be careful, now that you know what I am and that there are more of us around. Don't just go around mentioning vampires here and there, and definitely don't tell anyone about me."

"Or you'll kill me," I asked, making a curious side glance at him.

"I'm not the only danger out here," Briar told me, touching my hair before disappearing. I had hesitated to a stop, wondering exactly what he was trying to tell me. I made the rest of the way to my dorm in deep thought. I guess the whole message he was getting across was that his state was a secret. I thought it would be relatively easy to not slip up and tell people I had been seeing a vampire stalking around lately killing people. Like anyone would believe that in the first place…

That night when I had finally slipped into sleep, I dreamt of Briar's lips trailing over my body. While it was quite enjoyable, there was also an air of constant danger, and I found myself occasionally trying to move away from him but falling back into his arms. I woke up in sweat frenzy, looking around my room in a near panic to see that I was alone besides Brielle, who was snoring softly in the distance across the room. After a moment of controlling my pounding heart, I fell back into my bed, sighing at what I knew would be a long night without sleep.

By the time the next week came by, dead days had arrived in which all parties were blocked off and any other events not involving finals weren't presented. The campus grew extremely quiet as most people started on intense studying for finals. Brielle and I were no exceptions; we had spread out comfortable blankets across the floor, spread out books and notes, and had music playing softly in the background so as to not break the quiet rule within the dorms.

Brielle looked at me slowly, something in her mind distracting her from her studies. "Evan," she finally said with a questioning voice. I took a bite out of the twizzler in my hand before taking a glance at her to signal that I was indeed listening before continuing to look at my Western Civics textbook. "I was just thinking about Jessica and Melinda's funerals."

The funerals had been last week, both in two different towns, times, but in the same state. It had been super depressing to see so many people crying. It reminded me of my grandfather's funeral. He had been something else, that man. We hadn't been super close, but he had always been nice to me, getting me candy to eat against my mother's wish. My brother, Richard, had been my grandfather's favorite grandson when it came to intellect and especially political aspects in the future. My other brother, Victor, had been attached to my grandfather as well under different conditions, mostly sharing the same sport –golfing, fishing, and football mostly—interests with him.

At my grandfather's funeral, my two brothers sat on both sides of me on a pew that was three rows away from the open casket. They followed me almost blindly, and I had followed my fear of seeing his dead body sleeping in a small box, no matter how finely decorated it was. So many people were crying at the loss of him, but I could feel the aura of grief from my brothers, struggling to keep strong composures in front of other people. I always knew if I had started crying that day, they would have broke, which is why I attached to their strength and held it in for when I was alone.

"What about it," I asked her curiously.

There was a moment when Brielle just stared at the Twizzler in her hand, twisting it around thoughtfully, "Nothing. I was just thinking about it." I looked at her to see she went back to reading through her notes with a highlighter. After a second, I followed her lead, continuing on my studying as well. Brielle amazed me sometimes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Seven**

My insomnia reached an all time high during the finals week. I tried things from listening to soothing CDs of ocean waves crashing into an invisible shore to counting sheep to ingesting multiple sleeping pills. What resulted was just exhaustion that came with taking the exams every day. But I could not feel happier than when an exam was knocked off my list.

Between the finals, Brielle and I spent our time packing our things for the summer. She would be going back to her Aunt's house, which by her description was pretty small but filled with five other children who would die to play with my hair. I had received calls determining my summer stationing at my parent's summer house out in the country, which in my parent's terms meant out in the middle of nowhere rather than out in a farm somewhere. It was the closest house to the town where my brother Victor lived, which explained why my parents wanted to station there for the summer.

That night, I laid in my bed thinking about my last final of the semester that I would be taking the following day. Once I was finished with it, my ride was supposed to be waiting for me. I always wondered why I never just brought my own car to college, but then I didn't want to be dependent on my parents to help pay for gas and such. Not to mention all the people who would be asking for rides all the time, resulting in an increase of people bothering me. I preferred to be left alone mostly.

Due to my inability to sleep, I got up and moved to my usual seat next to my dorm room bedroom. My view looked over a lot of buildings on campus, revealing a large parking lot next to another art building. I liked seeing if anyone else was up and walking about on the sidewalks below. Plus, the weather was nice at night lately, resulting in me opening my window to feel the cool wind brushing over my skin.

I nearly screamed when suddenly Briar was sitting within the opening of the window. I looked towards Brielle's direction to see she hadn't been disturbed at all. Really, Brielle could sleep through anything. But then I looked out the window, wondering how exactly Briar made it up to this window, being on the fourth floor of the building. But then what did I know of vampires? Maybe he could jump over the eight floors and onto the roof.

"Amazing," I told him, and he smiled pleasantly.

"I thought it might impress you," he responded, and he looked out to the sky as though listening to something I couldn't quite hear. I looked outside as well to see nothing was moving. "This place is more alive than usual. I don't understand why."

"Finals, probably. It's the end of the semester term; people are going home for the summer." Briar frowned before looking at me thoughtfully. I could guess what he was thinking. "Including me. I leave tomorrow to be exact." He didn't say anything, but rather just continued looking over the campus. I couldn't be sure what he was thinking at this point, and it intrigued me. I wondered if maybe he was going to miss me or something. Or maybe he'd be happy I was leaving. Or maybe he was going to kill me before I could leave. I could never be completely sure around him.

"Come out here," Briar suddenly told me, gesturing to the edge of my window.

I scoffed, "No. I can't fly, unlike you."

"Come on," He insisted, holding out his hand. I bit my lip uncertainly, but decided it probably wouldn't be the death of me. I grabbed his hand, and made my way to crawl timidly through the window, trying not to let the wind take off with me. I had on only short shorts with a T-shirt, braless like I usually was when going to sleep. The wind was cool, moving through my clothes, twisting through my hair, and altogether feeling satisfying. That is, until I slipped, nearly falling over before Briar pulled me close to him.

"Woah," I said, feeling a bit numb at the realization that I could have just fallen to my death. I looked at Briar, who hadn't taken his grip away from around my waist protectively. I smiled, moving my hand to reach for his face as I had when I first talked to him. This time, he didn't stop me, and I touched his warm cheek with my fingertips. It was smooth, warm, and seemingly soft from the first touch, but just a little pressure revealed strength of stone underneath. "You're warm."

"Because I just fed on a warm little girl just a few minutes ago," He responded darkly, and I hesitated before moving my hand away from his face. I hated when he did that. He seemed normal one second, and then he just had to shove his murderous nature in my face in attempt to scare me off or something. I made a move to head back inside, and he tightened his grip on me almost threateningly.

I waited for him to say something, but he only looked at the ground below us. I looked as well, not seeing anybody there. Then it crossed my mind that maybe he wasn't looking for anyone. I looked at him slowly. "Are you going to throw me off," I asked him carefully, not quite feeling the fear at the possibility yet, but rather just wanting to know the truth.

"I'm thinking about it," Briar responded shortly.

"Why?"

"I'm supposed to."

I bit my lip, looking at his grip around my waist. "When you do kill me," I told him suddenly, "I'd prefer if it was less… painful than a four story drop." Briar suddenly looked from the ground to me quickly, and I smiled at him nervously.

"I could snap your neck first," he volunteered.

I shrugged. He finally loosened his grip from my waist, and I moved back into the room carefully. When I turned to the window, he was peering in slowly with narrowed eyes. I looked about as though I would see someone else in here, but no one was. Briar was really confusing sometimes. When I looked back, he was gone. I didn't think too hard on it, but rather moved to the window to see him nowhere in sight. With that, I closed the window, and moved to my bed to stare the rest of the night away.

My parents sent a car for me the next day to take me to the summer house nearby the town Victor lived. My brother was planning to get married this summer to a lovely lady by the name of Maria Windsor, being of European background with amazing black hair and emerald green eyes, and an attitude of a slightly snobby upbringing but tinged with a bit of modern openness to tolerance of almost anything. I had liked her enough the first time I met her, knowing she had her faults, but it's what made her Maria.

I guess now would be a good time to admit my own upbringings, being of wealthy decent by the name of Delaney… which held the Delaney Incorporations, a string of offices across the world that produced plenty of consumer products, including plenty of inventions in the computer software. I wasn't much interested in the business, and I was only thankful that arranged marriages was overlooked in modern times, allowing me to actually decide what the hell I wanted to do with my life. My mother always was hoping I'd marry a rich doctor or some handsome business owner, though.

Of course, the moment the car pulled into the gorgeous summer house, which was located in a pleasantly secluded wooded area; my mother opened the door with a gigantic smile on her face. I made my way from the car towards her open arms, and easily hugged her. She was a bit of a bimbo when it came to intelligence, but her kindness usually overcame such failings.

"Here's my Angel," she said happily as she hugged me, her red hair blinding my face, smelling of hairspray and other products. She moved away to pat at my face sweetly, her brown eyes smiling as well. The Delaney family mostly consisted of redheads and dark black hair, with blue or brown eyes, depending on chance. My brother Victor inherited the red hair, Richard inherited black from my father, and both inherited the brown eyes from my mother's side. I got the blue eyes from my father's side of the family line. The main reason my family wasn't completely concerned about my disinterest in the family business was because my brothers covered up that part well enough, both being highly intelligent in the business area; my brother Richard especially.

"So Maria wants you to be a bridesmaid, and said herself she would have you as Maid of Honor except that her own younger sister wishes for that spot," My mother told me as she led me into the house easily, "We have most of it planned, a big church wedding in town, and rehearsals will be soon. We'll have to get you fitted for the dress as well…" She continued to discuss the relevant and irrelevant aspects of the anticipated wedding, as I followed rather boredly. This would be the first wedding of my siblings, seeing as Richard was still a bachelor, even though he was the oldest of us three.

As we passed a room, the door opened to a tall man with dark hair and intense blue eyes that peered at me without a smile. I removed the smile from my face automatically, intently staring back without fear, and my mother merely pouted. For a moment, nothing was said. Then I nodded my head and said very professionally, "Mr. Delaney." This was followed by the man lifting his chin a bit higher, peering even more sternly.

Then his face broke into a smile as he said, "Get over here, you little punk." I smiled as well, and easily embraced my father with a bear hug. "How is your schooling? You're not flunking are you? Have you turned into a lesbian? I hear a lot of people turn lesbian in college… what about drugs? Are you pregnant?" I laughed at his teasing, shoving him away in pretend annoyance.

"It's fine, no, no, no, and no," I answered with laughter, moving to walk further down the hall. "Who all is here?" I looked about as though Victor or Richard would appear around a corner as well to harass their younger sister. More Victor than Richard, though, seeing as Richard was more of a serious type to be around while Victor would freely throw me into a mud puddle at the chance.

"Just us and a few of the help. Victor and Maria are already situated at their new house in town and Richard decided to stay at a hotel until the wedding was placed. I tried to tell him to come down here, but he was being strange about it," My mother told me, then turning to hiss at me excitedly, "I think he has a _girlfriend_."

My father heard this of course, and laughed, "He probably just prefers not to sleep with his parents in the house to bother him every second. What about you, Evan? You have any boyfriends?" I frowned, thinking of Briar and his vampire ways. Far from being a boyfriend.

"Nope," I answered shortly.

"Good, picky is good. Don't give yourself to some hobo from the streets," My father stated proudly, and I vaguely wondered if he thought I was a virgin. Though, to be honest, I wasn't a complete whore… I only had sex with one man… once… in a drunken haze. I couldn't even recall the situation, so in a way I was still a virgin, in my head.

"But don't be too picky, Angel, age forty is too late," My mother of course intervened, twisting her arm through mine to pat my hand lovingly. I was left to myself at the stairs, where I parted from my parents and headed to my appointed bedroom to unpack a few of my things, which were being brought up by some of the help. It was a brightly lit, white room, so clean that any drop of dirt would scream out against the coloring of the walls. Dainty red flowers designed the walls, and the bed sheets, probably picked just to match my hair color. I opened the closet to find clothes already positioned inside, new ones picked out over the school year by my mother on her shopping trips no doubt.

It felt weird to be here, not quite home, but with my family. My surroundings were quiet… and comforting, yet strange. I thought about the fact that Briar probably would be waiting for me at the school… that it'd be a whole summer before I'd see him again. Or perhaps never. This should have been a comfort to me, but instead I felt a slight longing. I missed him, even through his dangerous threats and bloody visits.


	8. Chapter 8

**Eight**

The following days were filled with wedding planning, in which I was brought to be fitted for bridesmaid dress, where I visited my future sister-in-law, Maria. She had picked out a pink theme to her bridesmaids, but at seeing the color with my hair, she declared in horror that the colors clashed and immediately went into a panic. It took a lot of convincing to finally decide that a more crystal blue theme would work out better, though I almost considered coloring my hair black instead to satisfy her contagious nerves.

My brother, Victor, I saw with some of his older friends, who were all planning his bachelor party soon. Maria was to have a bachelorette party, but I wasn't sure if I was completely invited or not. My mother said I would be fine, but nobody had directly told me anything about it. Not that I thought their party would exactly be much of a party… probably strippers, alcohol, and drunkenness. Then again that did sound a bit fun. Victor made sure to tease me while he saw me, pinching my arms, and calling me 'Angel' teasingly. I felt like kneeing him in the groin a lot of the time.

I didn't see my brother Richard until around the end of the first week out of school, when he sent word that he was coming to the country house to visit for dinner. My mother was ecstatic to see him, while I was a bit nervous. Richard had always been close to me, I mean he was my brother, but he was always the more mature one. From as far as I could remember, he seemed to be looking in the distance, thinking about the future or whatever went on in his brain. Whenever Victor or I got in a fix, he was the one who would know what to do. He was always a bit intimidating, but safe at the same time. I don't think there was anyone I was more eager to make proud than Richard.

The night of Richard's visit, I wore a darker red summer dress, pinning my hair up partly so that I looked appropriate for a fancy dinner, but more for a family one than a fancy restaurant. I made my way downstairs towards the dining room, where everyone was starting to get seated at the table, which was already set. The doorbell rang, and not long later Richard made his way into the room. I stayed seated in my chair, watching as my parents greeted Richard lovingly, before he finally looked at me. After a second, he smiled shortly.

"Evan, to this day it surprises me when you actually look like a decent girl," he teased lightly, and I smiled at his poor attempt at a compliment. My parents and Richard sat down at the table, and before anything else could be said, food was being brought in, along with drinks. "So, how is college? Still working towards an English Major?"

I took a small drink of what tasted like wine, and nodded. "It's still my favorite subject. So far I have a perfect 4.0 GPA, just waiting for my Plane Trigonometry grade to come in." I hated math. It was my worse subject and involved plenty of tutoring, but I was sure I at least made a low A or perhaps a high B. Though in college, low and high didn't matter, it was either an A or a B.

"Have you decided what you're going to do with an English degree," Richard asked me curiously, "Write novels, journalism… perhaps teach?" I was never sure what I wanted to do with English. Nothing Richard listed seemed like something I wanted to do. It was just my best subject, so I felt like I needed to work towards it. I loved writing essays and such, but not so much creative novels.

"Um… I've been looking towards journalism or maybe college level teaching, but I can't be completely sure what exactly I should go for," I answered nervously. This subject wasn't the best, seeing as my parents both wanted me to go for separate things. My mother was hoping I would shoot for fame in a type of modeling career or even acting. My father was hoping I would go with the business, but both wanted me to work where the money was. The rate I was going, I was merely looking for a mid-pay career, not really interested in all the gold in the world.

Before any other questions could erupt in regards to my future, the doorbell rang. I looked towards my mother, who would be the only person to invite people without telling anyone, but she looked confused herself. We waited a second to see if they would walk through the door, but instead someone from the help walked into the room.

"There's a man here, says he knows Miss Delaney," the man told us mysteriously. I looked at my mother again, and shrugged before saying, "Excuse me." And I pushed myself from my chair to head towards the front door. I excused the help as well, wondering if perhaps someone from my high school had come to visit me by surprise. Or maybe it was Brielle.

I opened the front door, looking behind me to see if anyone followed me, and turned to see Briar leaning against the threshold pleasantly. My heart skipped a beat, and I was torn between slamming the door shut and greeting him as I would a good friend. I settled with doing neither, but rather stared at him as he looked up at the ceiling of the porch. He moved his gaze from the skies to me, smiling darkly at my confusion.

"How'd you find me," I asked, looking behind him as though someone would be there who knew where I was and had told him. Briar only scoffed as though asking this had offended him.

"I think at this point you could try to hide from me across the seas, and I'd still be able to follow your scent," he made a move to come closer to me, but something stopped him from crossing the threshold of the door. "Aren't you going to invite me in?" I hesitated, not sure if that was what I wanted.

"Why don't you just make me, like you did that man," I asked curiously. At this request, he stood directly in front of the door, grabbing the edge to lean against it almost threateningly. He positioned himself in front of me, fixing his dark blue eyes on mine. They were almost hypnotizing, and I knew if he said anything… anything at all, I would do whatever he asked.

"Who is it, Angel," I heard my mother ask from behind me, and I turned to look at her in surprise. She made her way next to me, peering at Briar with a bit of disapproval. He did still look a bit homeless, but he was as gorgeous as ever. I could understand why this would cause disapproval from my mother… a homeless man with good looks could take any wealthy woman's money in the long run.

"It's, um, a guy I know from college," I said uncertainly, looking to see Briar glaring at my mother. He didn't seem to like her, but then he never seemed to like anyone. I couldn't tell why he hadn't killed me yet.

"I'm tired of waiting out here," Briar growled in annoyance, looking at my mother darkly, "Invite me in." I looked at my mother to see her eyes had glazed over a bit.

"Come in," she insisted simply, and he easily made his way into the house.

"Have them set up a room for me," Briar ordered, still fixing his eyes on my mother, "I'll be staying awhile. And if anyone asks, I'm a good friend of the family, Evangeline's boyfriend, here for the wedding. We don't want anyone to be suspicious of me, do we? You may go." My mother nodded, her face empty of expression, and she turned to make her way towards the help, where she would make plans for Briar's stay.

"You didn't have to do that to her," I said uneasily, a familiar feeling of dread falling over me as Briar looked about the house easily. "That's my mother, you didn't have to brainwash her." He suddenly looked towards me deviously, and before I could blink, he was in front of me, pushing me carefully against the door. He moved his hand through my hair slowly, moving his lips over my jaw as though to breathe in the very life of me. Chills went through me, and it reminded me of the last time I had touched his skin, which had been rather warm. At this time he was cool like an ocean breeze.

"Keep talking like this and we'll have to play the game again," Briar finally said darkly, turning his head before lifting a finger up, along with another… counting the number of people within the house. I quickly reached out to cover his hand, as though lowering his fingers would make him lose count and forget to mass murder my family. Rather than fight me, he submitted to my will, lowering his hand easily.

"No, no, don't. I'm sorry," I whispered, causing a smile to fall on his lips once again. I wondered what my family would think of him. Then again, it wouldn't matter because he'd probably just brainwash or kill them as well. "Are you here to kill me?" There was something definitely dangerous in his presence, and yet I still found a smile starting to form on my face. I felt strange around him.

"That was my original purpose, yes," Briar admitted once again, moving away from me to look at the house. "But I think I'll stick around awhile, first. See about killing your family too. Ever seen a wedding massacre? It's the best." And he was gone before I could object to his plans. I hesitated, but made my way into the dining room, where my mother had found herself seated with my father and Richard. Another chair was being brought up to the table, where Briar was aiming to sit next to my chair, and I slowly moved to sit down uncertainly.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Peirce," My father said boomingly, and I wondered if Briar's last name really was Peirce, "I knew Evan was lying about not having a boyfriend. She's too pretty to be single all the time." Nobody seemed to notice the fact that Briar's clothing choice was that of the homeless, like my mother had when first laying eyes on him, nor the fact that his hair was a bit untamed. Maybe they assumed he was having a bad day. Or maybe he brainwashed them into overlooking that part of his attire. I couldn't be sure anymore who was normal and who was under Briar's control.

"Ah yes, it's a pleasure to meet you as well. Evangeline failed to mention she came from a wealthy family as pristine as yours," I tried to watch Briar's expression for any sign that he may snap and attack my family or me. He merely smiled easily, looking at my father intensely, before staring at Richard, and avoided meeting my gaze. "Perhaps if I'd known what I was walking into, I would've dressed better." The members at the table all laughed humorously at this, and I merely bit my lip, twisting a fork through the pasta on my plate.

"No need to worry about that, we'll have good clothes fitted for you perfectly in your guest room by tomorrow. We can have a hair stylist here as well if you like, to perhaps fix you up anyway you wish," My father offered, acting strangely hospitable as compared to his usual belief that people should earn what they receive. I knew if this was any other man, my father would have stared at him coldly throughout any dinner, and insisted on me investing my feelings with a more suitable man. I couldn't stand this feeling of being in a play, not knowing what my lines were or what anyone was going to do at the bidding of Briar.

"May I be excused," I asked quietly, not sure who I should ask seeing as my parent's decision would most likely be based on Briar's. There was a silence, and I looked up from my plate to see everyone staring at me besides Briar, looking rather confused. "I'm not feeling too well." I made to push myself from the table, and Briar suddenly reached out to grip my wrist firmly, making me pause in my actions. I hesitated, looking from my wrist to him.

"Come with me," I insisted spontaneously, thinking it was better than leaving him here with my family where he could possibly get bored and murder them all. I twisted my hand around to grip his wrist instead, pulling lightly, knowing that any forceful pulling would be pointless against the likes of him. Briar looked around the table, where my family had gone back to eating without much concern for us, and stood to follow me from the dining room curiously.

I led him up the stairs, and stopped at my bedroom door, not sure that inviting him into there would be too smart of an idea. Not that this bothered him, for when I turned around, he was peering at me closely. I leaned back against the door, watching him as he stared at my face, possibly my neck… my shoulder. I bit my lip, feeling uncomfortable under his stare, and reached up to cover my neck only to have him quickly grab my hand before I could reach myself. His hand was cold over mine, making my heart start to throb in nervousness.

"Are you going to kill me," I asked once again.

"No," he replied sincerely, "I honestly don't think I ever purposely will."

"You're cold," I told him as he moved closer to me, holding my wrist nearer to his lips.

"I'm hungry," He answered darkly. I fully expected him to bite into my wrist at that moment, but before anything else was said, he was gone. I looked down the hall, moving my hand to my chest protectively. And when nobody presented themselves in the darkness, I turned to make my way into my bedroom, uncertainty and confusion clouding my mind.


	9. Chapter 9

**Nine**

The next morning I was told someone of the help had disappeared… a young redheaded woman named Holly who had only worked with us for two weeks. She was a few years older than me, but not too much older. I tried not to think of who would miss her or how she had gone, for I knew that Briar probably took her life and hidden her body after last night. But everyone else was thinking along the lines of her running away anyway.

I was also told I was officially invited to Maria's bachelorette party, which was the following night… the same night as the bachelor party so as to make sure no one of each party would get bored and crash the other. Apparently the bachelorette party was to take place in a distant club over in the next town, which would consist of bar hopping, karaoke, and who knew what else. I was just surprised I was invited at all; I never thought Maria and I were close enough to have her wanting to bond with me. But my mother said it was just that… a bonding experience for a future sister. I wasn't sure what they were planning, but I was thinking this was a party where I was going to have to get drunk to enjoy it.

Still, nothing was as stressful as knowing that Briar was about my country house, probably planning a wedding massacre for me to witness, brain washing whoever he wished along the way. My only relief was that during the day he seemed to be nonexistent, and life was almost normal except for the fact that absolutely no one would go near Briar's designated room. It made me completely curious as to what he did during the day. So much was my curiosity that I made a visit to the help's quarters to borrow the master key to the house.

I had made my way to the general direction of Briar's room the day of the bachelorette party, in which Maria's party was planning to pick me up in a few hours to join them. The master key was heavy in my hand, almost like it was reluctant to going near the room as well. I moved closer to the door, looking down the bright hallway as though to reassure myself that I was safe in the daylight. I laid my hand against the bedroom door, leaning against it carefully to listen for noise inside. I didn't hear any movement or any sounds at all, and hesitated. Maybe he didn't even stay in the room… maybe he left during the day to hide elsewhere.

With another short look around the hallway, I pressed the key into the keyhole of the doorknob, twisting it carefully. Before I could completely open the door, a hand suddenly clasped over mine threatening, and I jumped nearly a mile, turning to see a man looking at me blankly. I recognized him as one of the help as well, though I hadn't seen him about much.

"Mr. Peirce isn't to be disturbed during the day," the man told me simply. Without asking, he pulled the key from my hand and twisted the doorknob to make sure it was lock once again. Then he turned and walked away. I opened my mouth, closed it, and looked at the door. I mean this was my family's house, not the servant's, and it was startling to have access to a room denied by someone my own family was paying to be here. Again, must be another brainwashed person of the house.

I gave up on that conquest and prepared for the bachelorette party that night. I had gotten rid of my black clubbing dress – I wonder why – so I looked for another that would be suitable for a bachelorette party type of situation. I settled on a stylish white and black designer halter top with a more party-going black skirt and black leather boots that stretched up my legs protectively. I kept my hair down, organizing dainty banana curls and holding my bangs up with a designer hair pin loosely. Once satisfied, I was left waiting for the sound of Maria's girl-carriage, or rather limo, to pull into my driveway and take me away.

I heard the sound of the doorbell ringing just as the daylight was leaving the sky. The ride had arrived after all, and some part of me was reluctant to attend this "party". I made my way outside and to the limo, which I had guessed right, and entered to see six other women, all of which I didn't really recognize. They were dressed rather fancy for my usual clubbing experience, and I began to wonder why I didn't think that we'd be going to higher class partying locations.

Of the women in the limo, Maria was the only one who actually greeted me, smiling excitedly as I sat next to one of the strangers. I also noticed her sister, Lydia, sitting in the mix. She gave me a particularly dirty look, which was unlike Maria completely. Otherwise Lydia looked almost like Maria's twin. Lydia never liked me for some reason, but I wasn't a type of person who worked hard to make people like me. It was hit or miss for me. I believed I had enough people in my life to satisfy my social triangle of peace and excluding those who didn't like me didn't make me feel any less satisfied.

I think I got as far as halfway out of town before I began to think about Briar. I peered outside the limo window at the dark sky, knowing he was probably walking about doing whatever it was he did when I wasn't around. I wondered how boring his life must be to have put aside his summer to stalk me to my summer house and attend a random wedding. But then my life was pretty boring to have a summer surrounding my own brother's wedding. Obviously I wasn't the Queen of Friends and summer parties. Then again maybe he had a very fulfilling life. I mean, I had met at least a few of his friends… when they destroyed a full club with my friends in it.

How could I be thinking about how blue Briar's eyes were, how beautiful his skin felt under my fingertips, how breathless he left me every time he touched me, while knowing he could snap any second and kill everything and everyone close to me… including me? It must be some vampire trick.

Most of the night was a blur. I drank whatever was thrown at me in hopes that it would make the night move faster, but altogether it was exhausting. I didn't understand why we had to do the "hop" part. Couldn't we decide on a location and just stay there? Maybe I could curl up in a corner and be forgotten about until the next day… but no. Maria wanted to see the world of partying or whatever. And it was her party. I wasn't going to deprive her of her strippers and alcohol. Though there was something severely disturbing about having a man in tight underwear gyrate his junk near your face. The last time that had happened to me was at a local rock show, and I made it a point not to bother with front row seats after that.

As the night went on, we found ourselves at a packed karaoke bar with a good amount of alcohol in all of us, and our judgment was out the window. Somehow, I ended up being shoved on stage with Lydia to sing "Don't Stop Believing", the most overused karaoke song ever. And how I ended up with Lydia of all people was beyond me.

The worse part came about halfway through the song. As I was singing, Lydia made a circle around me, stumbling, and prepared to come in with her part. Then just as she finished, she swung her microphone in a full fan-like motion, which suddenly ended with a microphone being slammed into my face, directly into my nose. Automatically, I backed up, tripping over the wire, and having no equilibrium under my alcoholic state, I felt a disturbing pain in my ankle, and fell over the edge of the stage like a rock.

I couldn't be sure if anyone screamed or anything due to the fact that the pain in my face was so great I was trying to stop it with my hands. When I looked at my fingers, I saw blood, meaning my nose was probably busted, and suddenly the world was spinning out of focus and into the dark. I was soon being pulled to my feet, where I felt the severe pain of my ankle screaming at me. It brought back the vision of the karaoke bar, where people were trying to surround me and see if I was dying. Lydia was standing nearby telling Maria something that involved me being a wimp.

Before I could situate myself, I suddenly braved a painful step towards her, and swung all my might into a right hook across her face. Being that I was a tougher built than her, she fell pretty hard, but I fell as well seeing as my equilibrium was fucked and my nose was busted… and my ankle was possibly broken. Needless to say, the bachelorette party was over.

I was left at my driveway to hop towards my house like a wounded puppy unwanted enough to actually be taken to the hospital. Then again I had refused to go to the hospital, believing if my ankle was broken it would hurt more. And my nose had stopped bleeding, though it looked like shit. I tried to sneak my way back into the house, planning to hide out in my room until I looked better. Though the wedding was the day after tomorrow, so I didn't know what I was going to do for that. Then again Lydia had a nice bruise to wear with me.

Before I made more than a step into my bedroom, Briar was suddenly blocking my sneak attempt, obviously having been waiting for me in my own room. I self-consciously covered my nose, letting my hair fall over my face, and leaned back on the door so the pressure on my ankle was less. Briar's appearance startled me, being that he was well dressed and cleaned up as opposed to his usual homeless look. He looked as though he had planned to say something, but he hesitated, looking over me before closing his eyes and breathing in slowly.

"You got hurt," he said darkly, seeming a bit angry at this fact. "I thought you were just going on some girly party thing." I shrugged, not sure what to say to this. I felt like I was in trouble, and I didn't know why, seeing as I didn't technically do anything wrong. Briar reached out to move my hand from my face, and I moved my head to the side to try to hide my nose, but he held my face gently. I had already cleaned off the blood that had erupted from the collision, except for what got on my white shirt, but my nose was already swelling and turning a dark blue and red color. It was ugly.

"A microphone wanted to say hi to my nose," I said, sounding a bit stuffy like I had a cold or something. "And I fell so I hurt my ankle, too." I hadn't listed Lydia's name in fear that he would probably take it personal and go finish her off in the night. I thought it was a rather smart move on my part. Briar had let me go, deciding on something, but hesitating as though not sure how to say something to me. It was weird.

"What," I asked.

"I'm going to heal you," Briar stated simply.

"How do you plan to do that?"

"Well… either you do it willingly or I'll make you, I'm trying to determine which will be easier," He responded darkly. I hesitated, not sure now if I wanted to be healed, especially if he thought he would have to force me to let him heal me.

"What do you have to do... to heal me," I asked slowly.

He watched my face as he moved his left thumb over his right wrist quickly. I moved my gaze from his eyes to his wrist slowly, dread starting to form over my limbs as he pressed his nail into his own skin until blood began slipping through his skin. Then he raised the wound nearer to my face and said, "Drink. You don't have to take a lot. It'll be quick."

I froze before looking back into his eyes to see if he was serious. There was no sign that he was joking. I couldn't drink somebody's blood. The thought made me want to throw up until I died. Not to mention the thought brought flashes of vampire faces ripping throats and drinking gushing blood to my mind, making the thought of drinking blood even worse.

"How would you make me," I asked carefully, not wanting to just downright offend him by saying no, but planning on how to escape the situation. Maybe if I told him I was allergic to blood or something…

"Well, either by holding you down and forcing it down your throat," Briar suggested dementedly, the thought obviously entertaining him, "Or by controlling your mind. I'd prefer if you'd just be smart and do it willingly." I frowned, avoiding looking at his wrist.

"Why can't I just heal normally? Do I look that horrible?"

"Just drink, Evangeline."

"I won't. It's disgusting and… I'm not some blood drinking animal."

"Like me?" Briar moved closer suddenly, tension rising around him. Apparently insulting him wouldn't be the wisest thing to do in this situation… or in any situation. "Drink." I felt tears beginning to form in my eyes, knowing one way or another I was going to drink some guy's blood like a freak tonight.

"No," I whispered, afraid of what the consequences of rejection would be. Briar glared at me angrily, obviously annoyed by my reluctance, as though any other person would've went 'woohoo' and devoured his wrist… yeah… because that's what normal people do.

He reached for my cheek, moving my face to look at him. I avoided eye contact at first, afraid of the anger that would be there, but he moved into my gaze easily. And once I found his eyes with mine, I couldn't look away even if I wanted to. They were never-ending. Suddenly there was nothing else but his eyes; him. It calmed me, and I no longer feared what would happen to me.

"I don't want to hurt you," Briar told me carefully, "Don't be afraid. Just drink. It'll be ok." He moved his wrist in front of me, and without hesitation I trailed my tongue over the dripping blood on his skin and pressed my lips over the puncture on his wrist, tasting the strange twist of electric power that came with his blood. It was coppery, like anyone else's blood, but held a hint of sweetness that made it more tolerable to taste. The energy with it made it hard to want to stop drinking, and I found myself wanting more and more as it spread across my insides like lightning. "Stop."

Suddenly I was left back in my own head, gasping as I leaned back against the door. I reached for my head, wanting to feel sick at what I had done, but only feeling the fever of power pulsing over my body rapidly. It was like a drug; one I liked no matter how much I didn't want to like it. My heart was racing, mostly in fear of what was happening to me, as I moved my hands from my head to the solid door behind me to my stomach and neck. I felt like I needed to touch everything, to absorb it all. My mind was racing like crazy… I was going crazy. And it was so hot.

"Evangeline," Briar said softly, moving a cool hand over my burning cheek to get my attention. I had started to take off my clothes, and though I knew he was there in front of me, my hands still worked on tugging on my clothes against my wishes.

"I feel…," I gasped, unable to explain it to him. I pressed my face into his hand, wishing the excessive heat of my skin would transfer to him instead. Without thinking, I moved closer to him, pulling his other hand under my shirt to my lower back, where the coolness of his skin relieved the pain of the heat that was pulsing through me. I raised myself to press my cheek against his, pulling his head down to meet me desperately. I wanted him to absorb me, to get rid of whatever was inside of me. It was driving me crazy.

I heard a deep growl forming in his chest as I lifted his shirt to press my stomach against his without even thinking about it. At this point I had given up trying to stop myself, being that my body was doing its own thing. I only wanted to have him touching my whole body as much as possible, to let him have his power back. I wanted this to stop.

"Evangeline," He growled dangerously, not moving under my touches and caresses.

"Make it stop," I gasped into his ears, "Take it back, please." I was going to explode, I knew it.

"You don't want that," He told me, something in his voice saying clearly that he did. He was fighting not to do exactly as I wished, holding completely frozen as I moved my lips over his jaw. "It's just the blood talking. It'll pass soon." With that, he moved his hands slowly over my wrists and pulled me away from the door. I followed easily, feeling the power in my limbs rather than the pain that had been in my ankle not long ago. Briar pushed me towards my bed, and I fell over on top on the sheets like someone on ecstasy, rubbing my hands over the soft sheets as though I had never felt them before. My attention on the sheets was short-lived before I was feeling the heat burning my skin. I twisted off my shirt at last, pulling off my skirt as though it were on fire.

"Mmmm, Briar?" The power was feeling less insane and more pleasurable as I twisted against myself on the bed, touching my skin as though I hadn't noticed I had any before. I made to begin taking off my bra next, and suddenly my hand was being led away from my chest. Briar was over me carefully, keeping me from completely stripping. I smiled, feeling the pleasure purr under my skin, and I moved under him wanting to press myself against him in a different way than just cooling my hot skin.

"Let me have more," I moaned, licking my lips in anticipation of the increased power that would shoot throughout my veins. Briar chuckled at this.

"I'm afraid I already gave you too much," He responded, his voice twisting over my skin unlike before, making me squirm under him. "You're going to hate me in the morning once it's passed."

I shook my head in disagreement. "Take me then," I begged, my words thick and near desperate, "My blood… my body… take it all." I moved my wrists, wishing he wasn't holding me down so that I could devour him myself. He hesitated, obviously thinking about that offer.

"Yeah, you're going to hate me tomorrow," He decided, bending closer to me to press his lips over mine easily. I kissed him back, pressing my chest up to his desperately, and bit on his lower lip seductively. He moved back a bit to catch my gaze with his smoothly, and I felt the world disappearing around us. "God, forgive me… Sleep." And before I could get anything more, I was closing my eyes to a world of dreams.


	10. Chapter 10

**Ten**

The next day I woke up expecting the light to be a hammer against my head, but instead feeling the healthiest I had ever felt before. I woke up where I had fallen asleep, mostly naked on my bed top, but alone and mostly untouched. At first I felt confused, touching my nose which looked as though I hadn't gotten a microphone smashed into it and fallen off a stage the previous night. And then I felt embarrassed by how I had acted last night like a drug addicted whore or a cat in heat. This was followed by rage that Briar had made me drink his blood, probably knowing full well I would end up acting like that. But in the end I felt relief that he hadn't taken advantage of the situation, unlike the man who had taken my virginity, and that I felt completely fine while Lydia probably had a nice shiner on her face.

This day, being the day before the actual wedding, was absolutely insane. The Church was finishing its decorations, while all the preparations for the actual ceremony were being repeatedly discussed so that I was sure if I had become a vegetable I would still know who I was walking down the aisle with, when, and where to. My only relief was that the actual wedding was during the daylight, supposedly just before sunset to add a romantic air to the event. Afterward we were all to follow the newly wedded couple to the reception in town, which was hosted at a rather expensive location with an outside patio large enough to fit a football game.

Of course during the day I thought about Briar, who was locked away in his guest room probably hiding from the sun, having a brainwashed man servant keep away trespassers. I still found it odd that no one in my family spoke about him during the day, not that they did much at night either. In fact, I was so curious about this that at some point during the day I decided to bring Briar up to my mother, wondering what she'd say now that Briar wasn't around to control her without her knowing.

My mother was picking at my blue bridesmaid dress, which I had tried on for the millionth time to please her, when I decided to test this curiosity of mine. "Mom," I began slowly, "What do you think about Briar and I?" My mom stopped picking at my dress to look at me in the mirror absently.

"Who?" She continued wiping down a small wrinkle in the dress as she inspected it.

I hesitated. "Briar. The man who has been staying here with us in the guest room all summer."

"Angel, there's no one in the guest room," My mom looked at me as though maybe I had gone crazy. I didn't quite know how to react to this, being that obviously my mom had met Briar before, and now she just suddenly didn't recall him… even though she saw him a lot of the time when he came around to bother me.

"I know, Mom, I was just trying to make you think you're crazy," I said teasingly, making my mom hit me playfully on my arm.

"Well, stop that. I'm already going crazy enough over this wedding. Can't wait for the damn thing to be over with, pardon my language," She responded, beginning to mess with my hair. She had always loved that I had gains her red curls. In my opinion, she liked to think of me as a mini-her to make perfect in all the ways she wasn't. Not that I was a bitter rebellious type of child back in the day. I always loved my parents, no matter their flaws. They were human after all.

"So is this Briar a boyfriend of yours or something," my mom asked curiously.

"Or something," I replied cryptically.

The rest of the day went by quickly, probably quicker than a lot of people who were anxious about everything wished. I merely couldn't wait to get my part of the wedding over with, feeling overly exhausted about all the bickering that came from such an event. No doubt Victor was as calm as ever, probably watching sports and not knowing or caring where his tuxedo for the wedding was. The wedding talk absorbed into dinner with my parents, and finally I was allowed to go to bed for the night, where tomorrow would hold panic attacks and tears of despair… wedding bells and bird seeds.

I moved into my bedroom, turning to lock the door as I shut it, but decided to keep it unlocked subconsciously. When I moved to my closet, I slipped out of my clothes, keeping on my panties and removing my bra before slipping on a t-shirt. I stretched comfortably as I made my way to my bed, slipping onto it slowly before pulling back the blanket and sliding under it.

"You wore that to tempt me," I suddenly heard Briar say from within the room. I couldn't help but smile at his accusation. He made his way to my bed carefully, and without invitation, moved onto it easily. "You're a temptress."

"You think so," I asked seductively, moving my head in a way to allow my hair to fall around my face sheepishly. I pushed the blanket aside to give him room on my bed, and he narrowed his eyes before moving towards the indicated area.

"Why else would you leave your room unlocked, knowing I'm here, and wear next to nothing to bed when you know you probably won't fall asleep anyway," Briar asked slowly, and suddenly he made his way on top of me. I felt my heart skip a beat as he easily moved between my legs, holding his hands against the bed surface on either side of me.

"You want me to tempt you," I asked bravely, biting my lip at the sudden challenge. I moved my body under him seductively, twisting in a way to carefully grind against him, and turned to press my lips against his arm near me. He didn't change his expression at first, so I rose up to greet him, causing him to back away almost defensively. He paused, and I merely wrapped my arms around his neck and shoulder to press my lips against his cheek sweetly, moving my caresses to his jaw line and then his neck.

On impulse, I lightly bit Briar's neck, and suddenly he groaned before he slammed me back down against the mattress surface. There was an animal hunger in his eyes when he looked at me, but instead of showing fear, I continued to twist under him, arching my back to press myself closer to him, causing him to close his eyes as though to gain control of his thoughts.

"I would fuck you right now," Briar told me darkly, the comment making me smile deviously, "If it weren't for the fact that your screams would wake up this whole house."

"Mmmm… you really think you're that good," I asked sarcastically, licking my lips to continue to tempt him. Briar sharply gripped my waist to hold me tighter against him, causing a small gasp to escape my lips, and I fully expected him to strip and have sex with me right there. In fact, I wasn't going to stop him if he did. I completely welcomed it if anything.

"I know I am," Briar said into my ear, then moved away from me completely. It was as though he took my breath with him. I laid still for a moment, then pushed myself up to see him sitting in a chair across the room, looking at some figurine I had had on a nearby desk. I moved to the end of my bed, leaning against the bedpost curiously.

"You're a tease," I told him, "What you said in the woods at the school campus… I just offered myself to you twice and you ran away yourself. You're all talk." I smiled at the sarcastic roll of his eyes as he looked from the figurine towards me.

"You were on the effects of my blood last night… and now you're just playing. If anyone's the tease here, it's you," Briar told me simply, moving to rest a finger on his temple as though he had a headache. I moved around to where my back pressed against the bedpost instead, moving my hand over my leg almost comfortingly.

"You know… I hate you for making me do those things last night… and for brainwashing my family. And for killing all those people. You really scare me, and when I do sleep, it's all death and you. Honestly, you being here makes me feel like a mouse in a cat's grip, being teasingly set free only to be caught again… doomed," I told my leg nervously, listening to my heart begin to pulse quicker in response to the stress I had placed on myself. "But thank you for healing me… and thank you for not killing my family. And thank you… for not taking advantage of me last night. You could have done… anything, but you didn't. Thank you."

I braved a glance at Briar, who was looking at me dangerously, as though what I had said had enraged him for some reason. The look was enough to make me regret my small speech. Perhaps I should've kept my mouth shut, and now he would go kill my family to reassure himself he was evil.

"Killing people…," I said quietly, hesitating before shaking my head as I spoke, "Not killing people… thanking you is pointless if not unintelligent." I felt Briar's hands suddenly grip my face to look at him, for a minute thinking I would fall into another one of his gazes, and found my lips connecting his, causing a whole mess of things to happen. My breath was taken away, a warm rush flowed to my cheeks –which wasn't something that happened when I made out with random guy– and then Briar was gone so quickly I was left sitting dumbstruck on my bed with no clue as to what had just happened.

Then I thought perhaps that meant he went to kill my family after all, and I panicked. I ran outside of my room fearfully, listening for sounds of screams or necks snapping. One look in my parent's room found them sleeping peacefully and unharmed. A look around the house found no dead bodies on the ground anywhere. I last checked the guest room, which was unlocked and empty besides the usual furnishings of a bed, a few decorations, wardrobe, and such. There was no sign of Briar anywhere.

I laid in bed, unable to sleep naturally, wondering where Briar went and if he would be coming back. Maybe I had scared him off with my girly human speech and he had to go kill puppies to remind himself he was a mean little vampire. It worried me.


	11. Chapter 11

**Eleven**

There were a lot of people at the wedding that I didn't even recognize. In fact, almost none of our extended family came besides a few of the cousins that only kept in touch in hopes of gaining some money access. It was a place of strangers besides the immediate family of my parents and brothers. But something about these events caused people to want to talk to everyone like they knew them. In fact, I got called so many different names… like Ashley, Miranda, and such… I had to keep correcting people that I wasn't some second cousin or someone's girlfriend. No wonder it was easy to crash weddings.

I waited in a room with all the other bridesmaids and Maria, who was looking at the ceiling doing a type of tapping or hopping thing as people told her how beautiful she was and such. I personally thought I was a horrible bridesmaid being that I spent all the time ignoring her and wishing the wedding to be finished with already. Not to mention it was annoying to have Lydia complaining about the bruise on her face and asking how it was that I covered mine so well. I merely answered all questions with silence, pretending to not know what they all were talking about. Unlike what usually happens in television, people really didn't care to figure out how I looked completely normal after the bachelorette party. Therefore there were no awkward lies and sneaking around following.

As for the actual ceremony, I was supposed to walk down the aisle with Scott, one of the groomsmen. He was an old friend of Victor's, who I did remember from when they were in High School together. Scott smiled when meeting me for the walk, making me feel a bit more comfortable about the whole ordeal, seeing as if he was calm with the situation I would feel fine as well.

"Hey there, English Major," He greeted me, holding out his arm for me to take.

"Hey, Scott, still causing trouble?"

Scott chuckled. He and Victor had been the troublemakers in school. They looked very near to twins except for Scott's brown hair, and I assumed he would have easily been the Best Man except that the actual Best Man was Victor's lifetime Best Friend, Marcus. It had been a trio type of thing.

"Not anymore. Got myself an old lady and two little ones," Scott replied easily, and we began walking down the aisle slowly. I plastered a smile on my face for the pictures, and Scott patted my arm affectionately before we split apart to opposite sides of the chapel next to our designated people. Lydia made a subtle move away from me when I approached her so as to not have to touch me, and I situated myself to stand the rest of the ceremony in my spot with my little batch of flowers in front of me.

I looked at Victor, who was smiling like this was the best day of his life, and his brown eyes caught mine and smiled wider. I couldn't help but smile in return, genuinely happy that he was happy. Suddenly, the "Wedding March" struck into the room, and everyone stood up to look at the entrance of the church, where Maria was being led down the aisle with her father. Even with the wedding veil covering her face, she looked absolutely gorgeous.

I found my mother in the front row bawling her eyes out as though this were a funeral, though they were tears of happiness. For some reason it made me chuckle a bit instead of tear up myself. I wasn't one who cried due to happiness… more like despair or utter depression.

The rest of the wedding was rather simple. Two candles burned into one, vows, I-Dos, and finally the kiss that ended in applause and a race to a car that was going nowhere but to a wedding reception. For someone who didn't like weddings, though, I felt rather content. It was better than a funeral any day. Plus, once the wedding was over, I really had nothing to do but enjoy myself being that I practically was done being a bridesmaid.

I got a ride with my parents to the reception, looking forward to getting at least a small piece of cake and maybe some of those nasty sugar cubes that most weddings tended to have for some reason. When we arrived, it had already gotten dark, but the outside patio had lights that laced around easily and gave plenty of light for vision. It wasn't long before toasts were being given and traditions between husband and wife began… such as cutting the cake and feeding a piece to each other, drinking wine, opening gifts, and etc.

When it was well into the dark, and there was nothing left to do but dance, I found myself alone, looking around aimlessly. I wondered if Briar would show up. I had completely believed before that he would, probably causing a bit of trouble to bother me, and ultimately just getting bored before leaving. Still, I was waiting for him, not sure what I would say or do if he did show up. I didn't care, though, I was anxious.

"Who are you looking for," I heard Richard ask from beside me, and I turned to see him looking around as though he would somehow spot this person himself. He moved his gaze from the people to me, and I smiled easily.

"No one," I answered, assuming if I did say Briar, he wouldn't know who I was talking about.

"Right. Well, I assume it's not needed to say that I'll hurt that no one if they break your heart. Pass the word," Richard replied humorously before walking away towards a group of people who were waving him over, which made me laugh… mostly because I doubted he'd be able to hurt Briar even if he wanted to. I watched the night being danced away, waiting for Briar to appear. When everyone began to leave, I wondered if somehow I had upset Briar enough to make him disappear from my life permanently. I couldn't tell if I was relieved or disappointed.

After the reception, there was a small get-together planned at my house before everyone would leave for the summer; Maria and Victor to their honeymoon and everyone else who had a life to that. The get-together was at the country house, and only my mother, father, brothers, Maria, Maria's parents, and Lydia were coming. It wasn't supposed to take too long, consisting of just one last drink, hugs, welcome-to-the-family, and goodbyes.

We all marched into the Country House, my eyes automatically looking to the stairs and through the rooms as though Briar would be there waiting for me. When I didn't see him, I followed my family to the main room where they had already began pouring drinks and chattering happily.

"I'm so glad my young Victor has settled down, and with a good girl too," my mother said happily after the toast. I wondered if she was disappointed I hadn't found a suitable man yet. She was very old fashioned like that. I glanced at Richard, who was looking at the scene silently, and wondered if he wondered the same thing, being that he was older than Victor. It was in the middle of this thought that Maria's father suddenly screamed, and had fallen to ground in apparent pain.

My heart stopped when I saw his hand twisted oddly and blood beginning to flow from where a bone was sticking from his arm. Automatically, I looked up to see a man with light brown hair and dark skin smiling as everyone looked at him in horror. Fangs were clearly revealing in his smile, and I looked around the room to see a second vampire I didn't know who looked bored.

"Everyone on your knees in a line or you'll end up like that guy," He snapped, and I heard confused whimpers throughout my family. Maria's family was already on their knees, bending over her father to try to help him. He was alive, but in pain. I grabbed Richard's hand, gaining his attention, and moved to my knees too, knowing not to give these vampires reason to hurt anyone. When we went to our knees, the rest of my family followed, their fear overcoming their pride.

"Good," said the bored man, sounding a bit disappointed, "So nobody is confused, you're all going to die tonight. It's only a matter of in what order, honestly." The second vampire laughed pleasantly, obviously being the only one amused.

"Who- who are you," Lydia screeched, "Leave us alone!"

"I guess we'll start with her," the bored vampire stated, and the second suddenly appeared behind Lydia, biting into her neck furiously. I screamed, putting my hands over my ears and closing my eyes. I never actually hated Lydia, though she was annoying, and never wanted her to actually be killed. Richard grabbed my hand, tightening his grip, and I looked to see Lydia was already dead on the ground. By now most of my family was shaking, crying, or both.

"Okay, any volunteers," the vampire asked, without amusement. Before they could pick someone else in my family, I pulled my grip from Richard's with some difficulty, ignoring his protests and standing up to walk in front of them. The vampire peered at me with slight interest, before looking at the other. "Looks like we have a winner."

"Please," I begged, "Don't hurt them. You can kill me; just don't hurt my family anymore." I was already surprised I hadn't been killed already. But I was surprised even more when the vampire shrugged, not making a move to attack me.

"You'll have to ask him, he's the mastermind behind all this," the vampire said, pointing behind me. I turned around to find Briar between me and my family, his back to me and obviously planning to finish off the rest of those on their knees. My heart was pounding now, and I had began panting in fear for my family and mine life. Briar turned at the vampire's words to look at me darkly.

"Briar," I said quietly, reaching up to touch his face. Before I could, he grabbed both of my wrists roughly, anger apparently in his rough grip. Tears began to spill from my eyes against my will, and I cried out, "Why are you doing this? Please, Briar!"

"I'm not your pet," He snapped angrily, "I won't be told what to do. I won't be teased, and treated like some lifetime buddy of yours. I'm a monster, and I will _kill_ whoever I wish, whenever I wish." I didn't understand how he had suddenly changed from the person in my room to this monster in front of me, blood lust clear in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," I whimpered, fearing this was it after all. "I'm sorry, Briar. Please. Please, you can… you can hurt me, torture, k.." My voice faltered, not as brave as my mind. ".. Kill me, but please don't hurt my family. Please." I looked into his eyes, begging as desperately as I could with mine, but not looking away from the rage in his. If he was to kill me at this minute, I wouldn't close my eyes to it. I would accept it, if only it would save my family from the problems I caused in my own life.

Briar dropped my wrists angrily, looking to the other vampires who were watching with somewhat confused expressions. "Wipe their memories of us and leave them, I'll do hers," Briar ordered before glaring at me again. "Don't even _think_ about thanking me." He gripped my shoulders to roughly grab my attention from the floor back to his face. I was sobbing in both relief and despair, not sure what to think of the situation.

When my eyes finally caught his, the world disappeared, and there was nothing left but Briar. "Calm down," he told me in a not-so-calming voice, but because he ordered it, I felt myself beginning to relax, no longer crying hysterically. Then the hypnotizing world that was his eyes fell behind, and I was back in my own head. He didn't hesitate before continuing, "You won't remember anything you saw here. There's no such thing as vampires. A man broke in, stabbed Lydia and attacked her father. After the struggle, he got away. You won't remember anything about him except he was big with dark hair. Nothing else." Briar let go of me and looked away to make sure the others were being brainwashed into believing the same story. I found my old memories were still there, though, meaning Briar didn't actually wipe my memory as he said he would.

After everyone had forgotten Briar and the other vampires, they left us to our own hysteria. Lydia was dead and her father was injured with a broken arm. Everyone was scared that the man would come back to hurt us again. Cops were called, and made to question us. Only I knew the truth, and I couldn't tell anyone without dire consequences. I found my anxious feelings for Briar no longer wished to see him again, but rather feared when I would. I knew it wasn't over yet. Not even close.


	12. Chapter 12

**Reminder:**This is rated Mature so beware of mature content especially in this chapter and possible chapters to come. Continue…

**Twelve**

My parents decided to spend the rest of the summer in the city after Lydia's death and my brother Victor and his new wife Maria decided they no longer wanted to live in that town either. The next week was filled with funeral planning and packing for the next location. I would have ultimately decided to follow my parents to the city as well, but I was afraid someone… not saying who… would follow me there and know where my city house was as well. So I decided to no longer put my family in danger and told them I wished to remain at the country house alone.

With many questions and disappointed looks, some guilt trips about how this was their only time to see me anymore, I was finally allowed permission to stay put. Nobody in my family liked the idea, seeing as no one would be around in the family to make sure I was doing okay and also because a psychopath had recently broken in, killing Lydia, but I assured them if I could survive college without them I could survive a well furnished house with money in my bank, my own car, and a pantry/fridge filled with food. That and that I would have 911 on speed dial ready to call if any strange sounds of a break-in were made.

About an hour of being alone in the house led me to suddenly decide to make a trip to visit Brielle at her Aunt's house, which was a good two hours away from where I was located. After a short phone call to warn her of my visit, which involved her squealing excitedly like I was about to give her a golden house, I began my quiet drive towards her Aunt's. I'd never been there before, but Brielle had given me a nice description as to how to get there just for my knowledge, which meant she had hoped I would drive by during the summer. I was more than smart not to let her know where I was stationing for the summer or I was sure she would've stalked me down. And she couldn't erase my parent's opinions of her like Briar could.

Honestly, I was making my way to Brielle's in hopes of not having to face Briar anytime soon. I hadn't seen him since the get-together, mostly because I had been sleeping… or rather staring at the dark… with my parents. Though I was a little old to be doing such a thing, they forgave it being that we had gone through a tough ordeal. I assumed if he found the house empty, he would follow me, which is why I wouldn't be staying at Brielle's into the night. I planned to leave before the sun set so as to spend my night driving aimlessly.

I found Brielle's town easily. It was extremely small, mostly surrounding a railroad that went through the center of it. There were a lot of trees as well, and it was pretty quiet. I found her Aunt's house down a gravel road, with the name 'Woods' on the mailbox, being that her Aunt was from her father's side. Her mother had disappeared when Brielle was 15, leaving her at her Aunt's house under a pretense of going to another state for a short interview, never to show up again. Bri never talked much about her mother except that she was a nice woman, though a drug addict, and never hurt Brielle more than when she left her. She always wondered if perhaps her mother had died, but the investigation never went further than a ditching and missing case. Bri's aunt took her in without question, even though she had five kids of her own to take care of by herself. Their father had become had become an invalid when diagnosed with cancer, dying not long after.

The house… well, it was more of a trailer. But it was pretty. There were nice bushes placed about a neat yard decorously, the paint on the trailer a nice bright white. I made my way to the door, knocking easily before hearing screaming from behind the trailer, followed by hysterical laughter. When no one answered the door, I made my way around the trailer towards the noise.

In the backyard was a small children's pool, where five girls were splashing each other in bathing suits and running around. Their age ranged from what looked like five to about fourteen. There was a woman sitting at a table in the shade, where drinks were sitting atop easily, and I spotted Brielle talking to her. She spotted me and screamed happily.

"Evan!" She began running towards me. She was wearing a bikini top with some summer shorts, her hair pulled up into a ponytail, but was relatively dry as she ran to me and hugged me. "I'm so glad you came to visit, I missed you!"

"It's no problem," I told her, "I'm alone at the country house, now, it got lonely." I laughed.

"Oh, well, let me introduce you to my Aunt," She told me, pulling me towards the woman sitting in the shade, eyeing me carefully. She was a bit overweight, but not so much as you would expect a woman who birthed five children and was in her forties would look. Her hair, eyes, and skin were a dark brown; her eye's seeming wise and yet holding some humor behind them. "This is my Aunt Bertha! Auntie, this is only my best friend ever, Evan!"

After a minute, Bertha shook my hand, making me feel nervous. "Nice to meet you," I said quietly, feeling suddenly very shy.

"You gay, girl?" The question was so blunt and random, I laughed.

"Nah," I answered quickly, "I mean, I may have dabbled here and there, but I like my men."

Bertha automatically smiled, and I wondered if she had thought I was one of Brielle's girlfriends at first. Obviously she knew Brielle played for the girls. "Well, alright then, I mean I don't got nothing against gays, but I keep tellin' Brielle she missing out!"

"And I keep tellin' Auntie she's missing out too," Brielle responded in a sing-song voice, making Bertha laugh heartedly. It made me feel more comfortable now that I wasn't under Bertha's scrutinizing look. "Anyway, those over there are my cousins." Brielle pointed at the girls, who had noticed me enough to be eyeing me from the distance curiously, but not quite brave enough to approach yet.

"C'mon, girls, come meet my friend," Brielle called to them, and it was permission enough for them to run over towards their drinks on the table quickly except for the older girl, who looked rather bored than interested in meeting me. "These are Mary, Gloria, Regina, Leah, and Beth." She pointed to each one, though I had forgotten their names the moment she said them. It was something I had learned when I first went to college; being that there were so many new people I just stopped remembering names when I first heard them. It usually took me a few times of hanging out with someone to remember them, unless they stuck out easily.

"This is Evan," Brielle told them.

"Why you got a boy name," the youngest one automatically asked.

I opened my mouth, hesitating. "Well…"

"Beth," Brielle told me again, already knowing my name issue.

"Beth," I said to her, "My name is really Evangeline, but some people find it a tongue twister, so I just tell them to call me Evan."

"Why? Evangeline is pretty," another girl who looked about 10 asked. She had freckles across her nose and cheeks that I thought were a beautiful characteristic, though it looked awkward at her age. She obviously had the same preference as Briar when it came to my name.

"Gloria," Brielle chimed in.

"I don't know. Obviously not pretty enough. People just started calling me Evan, so I assumed it was easier," I told Gloria easily. Everyone was staring at me, and it was making me nervous. "Is there something on my head?"

"Can we play with your hair," a girl with green beads in her braids asked desperately. I looked at Brielle uncertainly.

"Mary and Leah are twins," Brielle said, pointing at the girl who just spoke and another girl with blue beads in her braids who did look completely identical to the other. "And I told you they'd want to play with your hair. It's really red."

"Ummm… I guess it's okay," I said, moving to sit down next to them, and they automatically began twisting their fingers, which were wet from swimming, through my hair. The oldest sister, Regina, moved to a corner of the table and began texting on her phone, ignoring everyone. Sweet teenage rage.

I spent the day with Brielle's family, feeling rather content there, where everyone seemed to find everything funny, and always had a story to tell about Brielle's embarrassing moments. Eventually, Brielle pulled me inside for a tour of the house, which some of her sisters felt they needed to help with. It was smaller than what I was used to at home, though college helped me break out of the space comfort with my small ass dorms. But it was comfortable. There was a small living room, with a nice television, two couches, and a coffee table. The kitchen had a table in it so that it was also the Dining room, and the refrigerator was black with rainbow letter magnets scattered across it randomly. The bathroom was small enough just to fit a toilet, bathtub/shower, and a sink, but not much else. There was a small closet with a water heater behind the shower as well.

As for the bedrooms, the only person with their own bedroom was Bertha. Regina and Brielle shared another bedroom, which looked to be the second biggest. Then in another bedroom were a bunk bed on one wall and a small child's bed on the other, where Mary, Leah, and Beth shared a room. In this one, the floor was covered in random clothes and toys.

After the tour, Brielle told the girls to go away, and we hid out in hers and Regina's room. I sat down on Brielle's designated bed, and she grabbed her laptop she had bought from her extra scholarship money before hoping on the bed, too. After a second, she grabbed her cell phone and messed with it before squashing herself against me randomly.

"Smile!" She said, smiling largely, and I smiled quickly as she took a picture on her cell. "Facebook picture." She explained before continuing to mess with her laptop. I laughed, leaning against the wall, watching her play around on her Facebook page. I had one myself, though I barely used it. I wasn't one of those anti-social network people, though, I just wasn't an addict.

"So… you remember that hypothetical situation I talked to you awhile back at school," I asked Brielle slowly as she uploaded the picture from her cell to the computer. "About the vampire that saves the girl in the alley?"

"Yeah," Brielle answered simply. "What about it?"

"Well, I want to do an update type of thing… you know, like let's say a good amount of time has passed since that situation type of hypothetical thing…," I was watching her face, which wasn't reacting with interest to the conversation just as before.

"Alright, shoot," Bri insisted.

"So the vampire has saved the girl, and she finds out he's an evil vampire. He likes to kill people… a lot. And he uses that to scare her, but he never kills her himself," I explained slowly, not sure what I was trying to explain. I guess I wanted to vent to a friend without actually freaking her out. "And then it starts to seem like… she may like him, you know?"

"Ahhh, Twilight love," Brielle said sarcastically. I punched her arm playfully. "Ow! Okay, okay, continue… does he like her?"

"Well… that's where the problem is. She um… she sort of begins to think he might like her, and then he randomly causes the pain and death people she knows in front of her… and he even almost kills the people she cares about the most. All just to prove that he's evil or something," I told her in frustration, "I don't get it."

Brielle was quiet for a minute. "Are you writing a story or something," she asked suddenly.

"No…," I realized she was finally listening and beginning to wonder why I would talk about this after all. "I'm reading a story… like online. And the person updates every once in awhile, but takes forever. So I'm just trying to understand their logic; Or rather their character's."

"Oh," Brielle said slowly.

"I know, I know, I'm the only person you know who reads. I'm weird."

"Yeah… well, anyway, I'd say that uhh… he's probably keeping himself from getting to close to her. Probably because any relationship there would be doomed, depending on the world they're in. I mean, if there are vampires, they probably have their own set of rules, being that no one knows about the vampire's actual existence. Something must be keeping it secret, right?"

I hesitated. "I don't get it. So there's a vampire rule against human relationship?"

"Well, I'm not in that world, am I? So I wouldn't know, but you're the one reading the story. Maybe he doesn't want to ultimately get close to her, but at the same time he does because he's still bothering her, right," She asked me suddenly.

"Oh, well not since the near-murder scene of her family… not yet at least," I answered.

"Well, if it's a story about them, he'll show up soon no doubt. But if it were like life, like you knew someone who knew someone in this situation," Brielle laughed disbelieving as though realizing this conversation was amazingly weird, "Uhh… Anyway, he could have decided not to risk her anymore and just left. But that'd be only if he really wasn't that interested in her, but not so uninterested as to want to kill her off. There's a thin line."

A sudden mix of emotions came over me. One was hope that perhaps Briar had left me permanently at last, so as to not even bother with killing me or destroying my life. Another was despair that he had left me… that I would never see his beautiful eyes again or hear his beautiful voice. That all he had done to change my life was nothing but a horrible nightmare.

"Or he doesn't even like or dislike her," Brielle suddenly said slowly, "Maybe he's like a demonic curse on her, or bored. So he's just trying to make her life miserable, killing off people she knows, messing with her emotions, until eventually she'll end up crazy and probably kill herself. What's this story called? I want to read it now."

I had been stunned into silence at her last suggestion.

"Haha, you're right, me reading? As if," Brielle continued laughing, turning on music on her computer, and I only continued to look at her in silence. After a moment, she glanced at me curiously. "You're still thinking about that story."

"What do I… what does she do," I asked desperately, "If that last one is true?! If he's a curse, how can she avoid that?" I began to panic, but tried to act calm so as to not alarm Brielle.

"Geez, calm down," She said with a frown, "She could either kill herself now, under the chance that he won't destroy her family. Or umm… run away to another country to live a loner's life so that he won't have anyone around to kill. Or… I don't know… confront him? I don't know what I'd do… probably kill myself. Maybe if I had a family I hated it wouldn't be so bad, but I love these guys, and if it were me I'd just like… I don't know. But don't worry, it could be something else. So your girl could probably end up fine. You weirdo."

I laughed nervously. "You're the weirdo, where do you get these ideas?"

"I'm a writer… I just don't write," Brielle said wisely, raising her head conceitedly, and continued typing into her Facebook status 'Evan be trippin'. As the sky began to darken, I felt the need to start heading back home before Briar appeared to ruin the fun. Bertha insisted I stayed for her ravioli, which sounded really delicious, but I passed, promising to come back to visit again one day. I wasn't sure if I would, but it was rude not to say so.

As I was leaving, I stopped by Brielle carefully at the door.

"Look, so I told some guy to meet me here earlier, but he's taken too long," I told her slowly.

"Who?!" I couldn't tell if she was surprised or exasperated.

"Just a guy I met, he's really gorgeous, black hair, blue eyes…," I hesitated, "If he shows up after I leave asking for me, just tell him I headed home to the country house. Tell him I'll be waiting for him there if he wants to come. And whatever you do, don't be all weird or rude, I'd prefer if you didn't…" I was going to say 'enrage him', but I thought that would make her act weird if Briar showed up after all. "… embarrass me, you know?"

"No problem, Evan, I'll keep it short until you give me the go to give him the third degree," she promised, and I smiled hopefully. I didn't want him to think Brielle was hiding me in the house or my future whereabouts if he arrived, nor suspicious so that it seemed she knew anything about him. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I wished I hadn't gone to visit Brielle, possibly putting her in danger of getting hurt. I only hoped she would tell him where I was headed and he would leave easily. Or maybe he wouldn't show up at all. Maybe Brielle's idea of him just leaving me was true. Or maybe her idea of him being a demonic curse was true and he would kill her and her whole family just to hurt me for future insane reasons.

The drive home was nerve-racking. I kept expecting something like Briar popping up in the middle of the road to stop my car or something crazy, thinking about Brielle's theories thoroughly. While I had originally planned to drive about aimlessly until daylight came, I found myself racing to get to the country house, worrying that if Briar was looking for me, he would get angry and kill Brielle for disappearing. After a normally two hour drive that ended up being only an hour, I pulled into my driveway, looking at the windows of the house to see it looked rather deserted.

I parked the car, took a deep breath, and left the car in order to make my way into the house. When I entered, I hesitated, looking about carefully to see only an uninhabited country house. I shut the door behind me, breathing slowly, and waited a minute without moving from my position.

"Briar," I called finally, looking around as though he was standing maybe against a wall and I just wasn't seeing him. When no one answered, I sighed in slight relief. Perhaps he was still ignoring me after the whole reception incident… or he had left me permanently. Either way, I couldn't stand in front of my house door, waiting due to a chance of him appearing in front of me.

I made my way to my bedroom, my footsteps echoing in the large empty house, and opened my bedroom door carefully, once again thinking there would be a chance Briar was stowed away in my room. I hated this feeling. It was like when Victor had his scare stage, where he would hide around corners to jump out and scare me after I used the bathroom. I always exited expecting someone to attack me.

There was no one in my room as well, and after a minute, I began to undress. I did the usual braless shirt and panties, which I didn't wear to tempt Briar but rather just because it was comfortable, and sat down at my desk. I began taking down the braids that Brielle's little cousins had put into my hair. I brushed out my curls, feeling the relief of the released strain the braids had put on my scalp. I ran my fingers through my hair contently, humming a small tune of a song I had stuck in my head.

"I went looking for you," Briar's voice said from inside the room, causing me to jump almost a mile from my own skin. Contrary to what I saw in movies, I never drop things when I jump, being that I mostly tighten my grip on whatever I'm holding and never jump hard enough to smash things. My heart pounded in my throat, making me lose my voice as I turned to see Briar leaning against my bedroom door, which I hadn't heard him open or close again.

"Your family left, so I thought you might had gone with them. Figured I'd go find you in case I got bored, but instead followed you to your lovely friend's small living arrangement," He told me leisurely. I looked at him cautiously, waiting for an emotion to show in his eyes or voice that would signal if he had hurt Brielle or not.

"She seemed to have been expecting me… which I'm sure means you were expecting I'd follow you there," He said darkly, and I wondered if he didn't like the fact that I knew what he would do before he did it. Not that I knew he would follow me to Brielle's… It was more like a precaution in case he did do so. He didn't continue his story of his adventure, but instead became still. I waited for awhile, and then decided he wanted me to ask.

"Did you… hurt her," I asked quietly, fear edging my voice at the thought that he may have.

He was quiet for the longest time, letting the question hang in the air like poison. "No. I was only there long enough to learn you were staying here after all. Did you not want me to find out where your other homes were," He asked me, dark amusement twisting through his voice. "Or perhaps you thought staying here would make it harder for me to kill your family?"

I turned away from him, continuing to brush through my hair with trembling hands. His threat on my family was clear in the air. I didn't know what he wanted, though. Why does he stay, threatening the ones I love, without any clear reason? Like a curse…

"I asked you a question," Briar suddenly growled from behind me angrily. My heart was racing against my will, my brushing motion failing to be fluid in any way. I didn't know what to say to him that would satisfy him. "Evangeline, Come here." The order was almost degrading, like I had become his slave or something. But then maybe I had without knowing it. I did say he could do anything if he hadn't harmed my family at the reception…

I used both of my hands to lightly put my hairbrush on the desktop, and took a slow breath before standing up to make my way to Briar's location. He was still leaning against my door, a sign that there was no escape for me. I stopped in front of him, moving my eyes to meet his without hesitation, waiting for whatever fate had in store for me.

"I don't appreciate the silent treatment," He said darkly, and I opened my mouth uncertain as to what to respond with. Before I could say something, he moved away from the door and closer to me with his speed that was beyond sight, startling me from remembering the words I was forming. "What? Do you not like me anymore? Nothing to thank me for tonight?"

I didn't … I couldn't respond. Anger was building around Briar, and I struggled to think of anything to say that wouldn't increase that anger and would satisfy him for the time being. Nothing came to mind, and I ended up being a mute.

"Well," Briar said, a demented look crossing over his eyes, "I can always go see if your friend and her lovely family have anything to talk about… or maybe your Mother and Father. They seemed a bit talkative the last few times I saw them—"

"I'm sorry," I gasped, shaking my head quickly, "I'm sorry, please, don't hurt them."

"I don't know… I'm starting to not understand why I shouldn't just end their pointless existence," Briar continued, making the dread in my stomach increase to complete despair. I didn't know at all what to say that would make him change his mind about killing off my family and friends.

"Why are you doing this to me," I asked desperately.

A low growl of rage formed in Briar's chest, and he suddenly twisted me around to push me against the door furiously, nearly knocking the breath from my chest. "I gave you the option of staying with me, in my world, during all this, and you chose to drag your life… your friends and family into it. This was your decision, Evangeline."

"I didn't want this," I whimpered, "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"I told you to leave and never come back to that alley," He yelled furiously, "I let you go multiple times and you kept coming back. _You_ wanted to know me, remember? Now you will!" Briar pushed against me roughly, revealing his fangs threateningly so that I began to panic. But through the fear, there was a sudden rage in my chest. It was a brave, self-corrupting rage, and it was flushing through my limbs daringly.

"Do it," I yelled back, my heart pounding in fear, "Just do it, then, finish me off! I don't care anymore, I don't!" And I closed my eyes, turning my head away in preparation for the end of my life. Briar suddenly roared in rage, and I heard a smash just beside my head before I was released. Automatically, I opened my eyes, looking over to see a hole in the door next to my head where Briar no doubt put his fist through. I quickly looked to see him pacing in front of me before he suddenly moved to reach for the doorknob.

Without hesitation, I moved in front of the doorknob, knowing full well if he wanted to leave he could do so with or without my permission. But if he was leaving he was probably going after the ones I loved, and I couldn't just stand by without some form of pitiful fight. Briar glared at me and moved to push me out of the way.

"Please," I begged helplessly.

"What," He snapped, seething, "You seriously want me to just kill you? Because you're going to have to do that yourself." And he moved to leave again.

"Please, don't hurt them," I asked again, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, just please…"

Briar sighed angrily, and I jumped when he was suddenly gripping my face in his hands. "Evangeline," he crooned beautifully with annoyance behind his voice, "I am not going to hurt your stupid useless family or your stupid useless friends, okay?" I looked into his eyes desperately, wondering if this was a trick of his.

"I don't believe you," I breathed honestly, fearing the remark would anger him more.

Briar instead frowned, his look lowering from my eyes to possibly my lips, and he said, "I'm…" I waited for him to finish his sentence, but instead he lightly pressed his lips over mine carefully. I hesitated, thinking about all the terrorizing things he had done to me since I'd met him, pretty sure I should struggle from his grip and run. But instead I sighed and kissed him back, moving my hand over his chest cautiously.

Without warning, he suddenly moved his grip over my thighs and lifted me against the door, pressing against me suggestively. I gasped, locking my lips against his again as though he were a different type of drug, just as addictive and just as corrupting. He then lifted me, turning to pull me to the bed, where I fell softly on my back. Automatically, I began moving backwards away from him as he pulled his shirt off without looking away from me.

Briar crawled onto the bed easily, moving over me so that I was stopped in my movements away from him, and his lips found mine again as I reached to touch his bare skin under my fingertips. His lips moved from my mouth to my jaw-line and neck as his hands also moved over my body, under my shirt, and over my breasts for the briefest of time. My heart raced in my throat as Briar's lips pressed over it hungrily, but I didn't think anything of it.

Time seemed to stop and speed up all at once. Briar's exploration of my body was so complete that I was raw all over before I had taken any of my clothes off. Every move I made to remove my shirt, panties, or even Briar's pants was subtly halted by his hands twisting over mine to lead me away easily. I began to think it was absolutely cruel of him, and he moved his lips from my neck region over my chest to just below my shirt. He smoothly lifted my shirt over my skin, trailing his lips over my stomach as it was bared, and eventually the cool air of his breath reached my bare breasts. Before doing anything more, he pulled the shirt completely over my head, leaving me with only my underwear on.

Briar's tongue was suddenly trailing over my breast, immediately causing me to gasp in surprise of the shock of pleasure that came with it. He suddenly hesitated. "Are you are virgin," he asked the most embarrassing question I could think of in this situation. I felt like I could have died from the speed of the heat that rose to my face.

"No," I responded truthfully, "Sort of… not literally… sort of… I don't remember it, I was drunk."

Briar moved to trace his lips over my cheek sweetly. "It's not something to be embarrassed about. The man who took your virginity should die for his lack of skill." I couldn't tell if he literally meant die or not, but then again it was Briar talking. Either way, the conversation was cut off by Briar suddenly moving to trace his tongue over my left nipple before nibbling at it, causing another gasp to escape my throat.

His lips moved from my chest down to my navel, moving over a slightly ticklish spot that make me gasp in a small fit of laughter against my will, which seemed to amuse Briar a bit. His fingers moved over my panty hems carefully, and began pulling them down my legs easily. His lips traced over my inner thighs, the pleasure already pulsing through my legs so that I began trembling in anticipation.

Briar brought his kisses back to my chest, neck, and my lips hungrily before I felt his hand press between my legs so suddenly that I moaned against his lips in surprise. I moved under him in pleasure, and he moved his lips over my neck before nibbling dangerously. I gasped against him, lost in his grip completely. He paused to pull off the rest of his clothes, but I continued moving under him in anticipation, pressing myself against him eagerly.

Without making me wait, he pushed himself into me slowly, the pain so pleasurable that I tightened under him in ecstasy. After a moment, he began to push into me in a slower motion, each thrust erupting a new rush of pleasure that I could only express with a high moan against his mouth. When I began to move against him in tune with his motions, he began to thrust at a faster pace, causing me to gasp uncontrollably. My heart was beyond exploding, and I felt like my body would follow next.

Just when I thought the pleasure had reached its max, Briar suddenly broke the pace, pressing his mouth over mine quickly before thrusting into me so that I suddenly felt a rush of ecstasy explode through me. It was definitely the first orgasm I had ever had before, and it seemed to feel like forever before I began to move down from the high, spending the whole time seizing against Briar in pleasure.

Briar moved to look at me after I felt a numbness move over my legs. "Are you okay?" He smiled with satisfaction, teasing me with his eyes. I remembered his comment about my screams waking up the house and rolled my eyes.

"Yes," I responded breathlessly. "Get that smirk off your face." This only made his smile widen, and he kissed my cheek carefully. After a moment of collecting myself, I looked at him suddenly. "You didn't bite me or… anything like that."

Briar moved to trace his fingers through my hair absently. "I thought I'd keep it simple for now."

"For now," I asked carefully.

He smirked again. "I'm not even close to done with you… Evangeline." His promise both disturbed and excited me… but he whispered my name oh so beautifully.


	13. Chapter 13

**Thirteen**

Days were relatively boring now that I was alone in a country house with nothing to do. I hadn't really thought the whole situation through, begin that Briar was a night owl and everyone else I knew did everything mid-day. So by staying to make sure my family would no longer be in harms reach of Briar, I casted myself into an antisocial situation, which would be fine if I could sleep my days away. Only I barely ever got more than 3 hours of sleep when I did find sleep at all.

Around nine in the morning I got a phone call from Brielle. It was nice to get phone calls, it made me feel popular. "Hey," I greeted Brielle sweetly, laying across the leather couch in the living room, where the television was turned off and I had merely been staring at the screen in boredom.

"Hi, Evan, I was wondering if you wanted to go swimming at a beach or something," Brielle asked curiously, "And maybe I could stay the night with you for a little while or… you know. Unless you don't want me to bother you or…"

Automatically, I felt anxious, not sure how to reject Brielle's ideas without hurting her feelings.

"I mean, it's up to you, you know? It's just I would have you come stay with me, but you've seen where I live… it's kind of small. Crowded… no peace… okay, Evan, I'm going insane, I'll sleep in the car if that'll help," Brielle said desperately.

I hesitated, "I don't know…" I thought about it for a minute, knowing Brielle was probably on the other end with her fingers crossed. I did have this big house to myself… so saying no would seem very rude and conceited of me. And it would only be for a night… but no doubt Briar would show up. Then again Brielle already knew about him, even if she didn't _know_ about him, but she'd want to meet him soon anyway or want to know _something_ being that she was my best friend. Besides, Briar already promised not to hurt my "stupid, useless friend", so perhaps it wouldn't be the death of Brielle to stay the night… the most that could happen would be brainwashing, which I was against, but wasn't as bad as death.

"Fine," I said reluctantly, "But only one night, my parents won't know you're here." The last part was just a stupid excuse being that my parents really wouldn't care about me having a friend staying over.

Brielle squealed happily, "Oh my God, come pick me up, we'll go to the beach!" And she hung up. It was nice that she just offered up my gas and car and time to go pick her up from 2 hours away. But instead of irritating me, it made me laugh quietly, and I moved to my room to switch to swimming clothing, grabbing a towel and sunscreen. I was a redhead, I burned rather easily.

I picked Brielle up from her Aunt's house, where all her younger cousins, minus Regina, ran out to say hi to me before I left with their cousin. Brielle was already in her bikini, holding a beach bag with her where she probably had a towel and change of clothes. As we drove back towards the country house, where a beach was nearby the town, she put her feet up on the dashboard, changing the radio station on the car to hip-hop.

Brielle began her discussion on the gossip of the students of our university almost immediately, and I listened between her and the music, laughing at some of the rude things she'd say. We pulled into another road that led off into the beach, and I parked in the shade. We made our way to the sand, where plenty of people were running around, splashing into the water, and laughing contently. Brielle and I laid out towels, and she laid down automatically, while I took the time to put on sunscreen over my body protectively. I was slightly jealous of her darker skin and her unconcern to sunburn.

After applying sunscreen, I laid back as well, feeling the hot sun warm over my skin heavily. Brielle talked about some conversation she had with someone from our school concerning some girl who got pregnant but cheated on her boyfriend with his brother. I barely listened, beginning to think about Briar's lips over my skin absently, his tongue over my breast…

"Ok so I don't want to sound all offended, but I'm offended," Brielle suddenly said sharply, rolling over to look at me impatiently. I was pulled from my daze to look at her in confusion. After a moment, she scoffed. "I'm talking about that gorgeous man who, by the way, did show up at my house looking for you. Admittedly he could use new clothes and maybe do something with his hair, but oh… my God. I'm gay and I still thought he was fine as hell."

I hesitated between laughing and frowning. "Wait, so what offends you?"

"Only that I'm your _best friend_ and I have no idea who this guy is because my _best friend_ hasn't or won't tell me anything about him," Brielle replied in irritation.

"Oh," I said slowly, "Well… to be honest, you'll probably officially meet him tonight."

Brielle narrowed her eyes at me curiously. "So is he like… your boyfriend or something?"

"Um," I hesitated again, "I don't… well… I wouldn't say…" I went quiet into my thoughts.

"I mean are you dating or… is he just stalking you? Or what," She asked, suddenly becoming as confused as me. "How do you not know if you're going out with him or not?"

"Well, we're not going out, but…"

"You're fucking." Brielle said it so bluntly that it startled me.

"I wouldn't just… call it that I mean… sounds kind of," I paused uncertainly.

"Dirty?" She rolled onto her back, closing her eyes. "Yet pleasurable and awesome?"

"Emotionless," I answered.

"Well, from what I'm hearing, you only see him at night, don't know if he's your boyfriend or not, but have sex with him. Sounds like a booty call to me… straight up fuck buddy," Brielle told me humorously. I wondered if it was true, that I was once again just being used by Briar to keep him from being bored. But then her reasoning was that he was only seen at night – he was a vampire – and I didn't know if he was my boyfriend because he was practically the most bipolar person I knew… and he was a vampire. I didn't know how that worked.

"Unless… he didn't do what that one guy did, right," Brielle asked suddenly, "The one at the party? Because if so I'll kick his ass, straight up." I knew she was talking about the man who had actually taken my virginity my freshman year of college, when I was given kool-aid that turned out to be alcohol and taken to a back room. I couldn't remember anything after that except waking up with dried blood on the inside of my legs and feeling sore… and somewhat odd, like dirty or something.

"No," I promised Brielle, "No, nothing like that."

"Okay well I want to meet him, booty call or not, I refuse to be out of the loop in my own bestie's relationship when I hear about everyone else's like it's nobody's business," she said, moving to roll onto her stomach. I followed her lead, lying on my stomach so that my back felt the sun's touch.

"You just want to spread gossip about Evan actually having a sex life," I teased, throwing a bit of sand at her. She laughed, hitting my arm playfully.

"It'll give you more rep, you know you're a bit intense… it freaks out the men, but if they hear someone got ya anyway, you're suddenly not so untouchable," Brielle told me with a smirk. "Now you just need to dabble with the girls a little more. I'm just sayin'."

I laughed. "You wish!" We were quiet for the longest time, the sun lulling us into a type of snooze. I waited until I had the courage to bring up a new… or rather the same subject. "So I wanted to ask you about that story I was reading… the vampire one."

"Oh God," Brielle moaned sleepily.

"It was updated last night," I told her with a laugh.

"Alright, what happened next," She asked boredly.

"Well, the vampire came back. And he at first teased about killing her family and the ones she loved, so I was thinking it was that whole curse situation you were talking about. But then he promises he won't hurt anyone, and they… have sex," I told her carefully, and she opened an eye to look at me with a bit of interest.

"Oh, then he likes-likes her," She said easily.

I hesitated. "What do you mean? Like Twilight Love X-Rated?"

She laughed. "Sounds like it. I mean if he liked her enough not to kill her, but not enough to want to be with her, he would have left permanently. But he might like-like her, meaning he was threatening all those people to try to keep from liking her. Or he's still a curse and is just lying about not hurting her loved ones, having sex with her to mess with her emotions, so the next thing he does will hurt worse than ever depending on how much she likes him."

I paused, thinking about the last option. "Or maybe he likes-likes her."

"Well, either way it's doomed, she'll be turned into a vampire, killed, or become old while he lives forever. Hell, you still don't know if they have their own rules against human relationship… has the story said anything about it," Brielle asked curiously, "I mean any foreboding that there's a vampire kingdom or anything hiding behind that vampire's world?"

I shrugged, "Not that I know of."

"Who knows, maybe there isn't a ruling system, maybe the humans just refuse to believe anything supernatural is going on," She said absently, "Anything else?"

"Nah, that's it for now," I replied, worried about what she was suggesting in Briar and my relationship. Whatever type of relationship it was… it all sounded bad. "What do you think she should do if the relationship is doomed, but he still isn't done?"

Brielle sighed, "Look up the word 'incubus'. And if it was like… a situational thing where she actually wanted to be rid of him, I'd say do something like… find a vampire killer or learn how to kill him."

I suddenly sat up. "Kill him?"

"It would be interesting, huh," Brielle asked, obviously pleased with her idea, "I mean, you don't see that in a Twilight love story, it'd be a good twist. Fall for a vampire, and kill him to save yourself. Nice." I was still stuck on the killing part.

"So you think she would be able to kill the vampire," I asked curiously.

"Oh, I'm sure. In this story, does he go out into daylight?"

"No…"

"Then sunlight would kill him. Wait for other signs like… Holy water, silver, garlic, crosses… see if there's weaknesses. And I'll bet chopping off his head or staking him or something would kill him as well. Maybe even fire… yeah, she could probably kill him if she was smart about it," Brielle smiled dementedly; "It'd be a real backstabbing move, too. Awesome."

"So you've suggested this … girl… should kill herself and now you're saying kill the vampire…"

"I mean… there's a 95% chance she'll fail at killing him and be killed anyway, so it's a hit or miss move. Or she could just ride out the situation until eventually she'll be destroyed or turned into a vampire herself. And if she was afraid of her family begin hurt before, just wait until she's a vampire… and wanting to kill everyone herself." Brielle pointed a finger at me, clicking her tongue like she was shooting a gun at me, before lying on her back to soak up the sun some more.

I laid down as well, thinking about her words. "Kill him," I muttered quietly, imagining stabbing Briar through the chest and watching the life die behind his beautiful blue eyes. I didn't think I could kill him if my life depended on it. But then I thought about my family having their throats ripped out in front of me… if I were turned against my will into a vampire… and it was my hands ripping their throats. Still, his eyes were so beautiful… the thought of killing him took my breath away in despair.


	14. Chapter 14

**Author's Note**: Don't forget to let me know if I should work more on it, delete it, and also let me know how you like the story so far!

* * *

**Fourteen**

Brielle was utterly amazed by the country house. In her words… it was "so big and cleeeaan". When I told her she could sleep in her own guest room, she didn't seem to understand at first, but then she freaked out and ran upstairs to pick a room. After claiming her room, which was down the hall from mine, she voiced that she wished to view my room. I led her to my room quickly, opening the door so she'd see the interior of the white room with red flower designs, neatly cleaned without a wrinkle out of place.

"Oh, nice," Brielle said, moving around the room easily before turning to look at me. Her eyes moved from my face to the door behind me. "Ummmm… Evan, I mean don't get me wrong, my house gots some random scrapes and bruises itself, but I'm just sayin'… You might want to do something about _that_." She pointed behind me, and I turned to see the hole in the door that Briar had left the night before.

"Right," I replied slowly, "I really don't know how to explain that."

"Don't worry, we'll just assume you were playing with a shotgun or something," She said absently, sitting down on my bed. This would have probably disturbed me, but I had cleaned the sheets already so I decided not to say anything about the things that had occurred on that bed.

"So… you hungry?"

"Yes!" We made our way downstairs to get food from the kitchen. A look out the window showed shadows of darkness as the sun left the sky, and I bit my bottom lip nervously. I quickly hid my anxiety as I helped Brielle make sandwiches and pull out sodas.

"We should watch a movie," Brielle suggested just as the doorbell rang. We looked at each other, and I saw her expression brighten to excitement. Automatically, we both began racing for the door, Brielle trying to beat me there to get a good look and I tried beating her to make sure it wasn't death.

We both swung open the door to see Briar waiting with his hands behind his back innocently. My heart seemed to stop for a minute by the sight of him, making me forget any greeting I had formed. I knew full well that he didn't have to ring the door bell to get permission into this house, but that he had done so because he had already known Brielle was here and wanted to keep up appearances. That would purely be for my sake, seeing as I doubted in his preference that he would care either way what Brielle thought if he had just waltz into the house like he owned it.

"Delaney's residence," Brielle said, automatically adapting a perfect Aunt Bertha scrutinizing look as she peered at Briar. I laughed at her formal phone greeting, and Briar's bored look moved from me to Brielle carefully.

"Come in," I insisted shortly, moving aside so that Briar could step into the house. "This is my friend, Brielle. Brielle, this is my… um… Briar."

"I apologize if I'm interrupting your…," He said before Brielle could greet him, looking over the house towards the kitchen where the sandwiches had been left forgotten. "… Girl Night."

I hesitated, wondering if perhaps Briar hadn't wanted Brielle to be here. "Yeah, sorry, it was a spontaneous decision…"

"Girl, you don't gotta explain yourself to anybody, this ain't his house," Brielle said with a click of her tongue, moving her way back towards the sandwiches. I was beginning to grow extremely nervous. I knew she didn't trust Briar because she had dubbed him a booty call; a user and abuser. And she didn't like men in general. I was worried she would ultimately piss Briar off, though, which wouldn't be good for her health.

When Brielle was out of hearing range, I raised my eyes to Briar's carefully. "She's just playing protective friend," I told him lamely. For a moment, he just watched me, making me begin to squirm under his stare nervously. And then he moved close to me, bending down until his lips lightly brushed over mine, causing me to hold my breath.

"Your jealous friend desires you greatly. She doesn't like me for the way you look at me," He told me with amusement, making a blush rise to my cheeks darkly. Briar smiled humorously. "It's actually quite an interesting change to have a woman long for the woman I desire, rather than me."

"Hey hey! There will be no whispering, giggling, or necking tonight. You can call me Miss Cockblocker," Brielle interrupted swiftly, grabbing my arm to pull me away from Briar and towards the living room. I lifted up my fingers to my lips as I was taken away. Brielle sat me down, leaving Briar in the other room to do whatever mysterious thing he was doing. I assumed he was giving us space for some odd reason.

"I don't like him," Brielle said to me suddenly. I was startled. Just earlier today she had talked about how gorgeous Briar was and now she was looking towards the room we had left him in with a look of distrust written across her face.

"Why not," I asked, sounding completely confused.

"He gives me the creeps," She told me knowingly, "The way he looks at me is one thing… obviously he doesn't like me but it's more like he thinks he's better than me. And then the way he looks at you… it's creepy… possessive… and stalkerish." Wow. Brielle should be like a psychologist. She hit the nail right on the head sometimes.

"I like him," I responded shortly.

"You're scared of him and you like the excitement. It's completely different. And it's disturbing," She was now looking at me as if she were dissecting me. I wondered if really she was just jealous and wanting me to get rid of whatever love life I could possibly have without her. "Look, I'm not gonna pretend like I know everything and you should do everything I say… though you should… but that guy in there just screams abuser material. Don't be that girl who thinks she can change what can't be changed."

"He's just intense," I finally said with exasperation, "You only just met him, you don't know how he is…" A part of me wanted to defend him but another part knew that she spoke the truth. Even if Briar hadn't physically abused me, he had killed people and even a family member just to scare me. I should know better than to sleep with someone like that. But there was something… exotic about him. Something that just drew me to him almost against my own will.

We were interrupted when Briar walked into the room. It startled me. Had he heard what Brielle was telling me? Would it make him mad to hear my best friend trying to get me to not be with him? He didn't act as though he did though. Instead, he sat next to me, away from Brielle, who began talking loudly about what movie we should watch on Netflix.

When we picked one, the room was mostly quiet for a while. But only for a while.

Brielle kept glance at Briar, who when I looked at him, he would move his eyes from her to me and flash a small smile as if to please me. I then would look back towards Brielle who kept squirming and looking past me to Briar repeatedly. Again, I'd look at Briar, but he didn't seem to be doing anything suspicious.

After a moment, the quiet was interrupted. "What?" Brielle snapped at Briar.

"Bri," I said in a way that demanded an answer.

"He keeps giving me that weird look, it's freaky," She said defensively, looking back at the movie. I looked at Briar to see him only looking at the movie as well and when he noticed my confused gaze he only shrugged innocently. I didn't say anything else because they didn't say anything else.

But then I realized I hadn't grabbed my sandwich from the kitchen and I was still hungry. I got up to go to the kitchen and Briar grabbed my wrist suddenly. I looked at him, the grip startling me, not wanting to make him mad.

"I'm just going to get something to eat," I explained.

"Let go of her," Brielle ordered with her extreme attitude. If Briar didn't know before, he knew now that she didn't like him. I felt my stomach drop when Briar suddenly pulled me down onto his lap possessively. "I said let go of her. This is her house and that's her body. She can go get food if she wants and she doesn't need your permission."

"She likes it here," Briar growled from behind my ear, wrapping his arm around my stomach. I felt very uncomfortable, but I also was relieved to be in this position where it indicated Briar wouldn't be attacking Brielle yet. At least, he'd have to move me off of him before attacking her. "Don't you?" He directed the question at me dementedly, as if he enjoyed bothering Brielle.

"Bri, it's fine," I told her, trying to get her to calm down. I really really didn't want her to piss Briar off.

"It's not _fine_," She snapped, "He's acting like he owns you. And you're not even together, you even said yourself you didn't know if you were boyfriend/girlfriend. You're not his _property_." She was standing up now, and she reached out to grab my wrist.

The minute she had ahold of my wrist, Briar suddenly had ahold of hers. His eyes flashed darkly, obviously annoyed at some human trying to act as if she could control him. Or perhaps he was mad she was trying to take away something of his… maybe he did consider me as his property…

"Let _go_ of her and let go of _me,_" Brielle snapped at him, grabbing his wrist with her other hand in an attempt to pry his grip away from her. I was beginning to panic now. I couldn't move away from Briar because of his iron grip around my waist and because of that I couldn't attempt to remove Brielle from the room.

"How about I snap your neck instead," Briar suddenly snarled from behind me. My heart was pounding in my chest now.

"Guys," I said in a high pitched voice.

"How about I'm not scared of you, you pathetic piece of shit," She yelled back, and there was suddenly a snap from around Brielle's wrist, making her rage suddenly turn to pain and fear. Both Brielle and I screamed, and I grabbed at Briar's hand with Brielle as if I could help make him let go.

"Briar," I cried out, "Briar, stop. Stop, please!" There was another crack, making Brielle scream even more. He was going to crush her wrist into dust. I twisted in Briar's lap, facing him in an attempt to get his full attention. I grabbed his face in my hands, moving to block his site from Brielle and to pull his eyes to mine. "Briar. Briar." I called his name until he finally met my eyes with his gorgeous but dangerously furious blue eyes. They were cold and shocking.

"You don't own me and I won't play nice just because you want me to," He growled at me darkly. I was trying to twist my fingers under his hand, wishing it was my wrist instead of Brielle's in his grip. I wasn't as afraid of being hurt or losing my own life as I was of hurting others due to my foolish choices. I never should have let Brielle come to this place, knowing how angry Briar could get.

"I know," I told him, and I pushed my forehead against his, closing my eyes before opening them again to look at his frightening glare. I didn't shy away from it though, instead trying to calm him. "I know. Please. Please have… have mercy. Please, I'll… I'll take the blame for her actions, just please don't take out your rage on her. You… you told me you wouldn't hurt my friends or family. Please." I begged with all my heart, willing him to not hurt Brielle anymore. If he'd just let her go, I'd send her away and never ever have her come near him again.

Briar only glared into my pleading eyes and then suddenly growled in frustration before pushing me off of him to the side and dragging Brielle closer to him. I cried out, fully expecting this to mean he was going to bite into her flesh and finish her in front of me. Instead, he glared into her eyes familiarly, gaining her attention and drawing her cries down into silence.

"You've never seen me before and you won't remember anything about me or anything about your broken wrist," Briar snapped at her, "You will not go near Evangeline again. Never call her. Never talk to her. And if you see her, walk the opposite direction." I was shocked into silence. "Evangeline is _mine_." And then he let her go.

Brielle stumbled a bit, gripping her hand to her stomach in order to favor her broken wrist, and then looked around in confusion. When she saw me, she hesitated, but then turned around and walked away until she was out of my house. It took me a minute to realize what this meant. Brielle was gone. She was safe… but she was gone. Forever.

"Why," I asked in a hushed whisper, "Why did you…" I couldn't understand. He could have just made her forget about him. He didn't have to make her leave me. She was my best friend… She was the only person I could talk to… Briar and his friends had already killed my other friends; Jessica and Melinda. Briar had made me driven my family far away from me. And now he drove away the last person I had.

Suddenly I was pissed. I stood up and blindly stomped towards Briar, who was only looking at me boredly, and hit him across his face. He didn't even budge, but I didn't care. "Why did you do that," I screamed at him. I hit him again. And then again. I ignored the pain of my bruising hands and I pushed his chest, hit him, and before I could do more Briar grabbed my wrists. Obviously, I had reached a line and had annoyed him.

"I didn't kill her," He hissed at me, "Would you prefer that?"

"You know I wouldn't," I screamed at him before I started crying, "Why are you doing this to me?" Suddenly, Briar twisted me around and pinned my back against him, pushing my wrists against my chest so I couldn't struggle away. He held my wrists easily with one hand and pushed my head back against him and to the side so that my neck was revealed and vulnerable. I gasped, holding still against him, expecting him to bite into me and finally kill me.

Instead, he suddenly reached his wrist to his mouth, biting into it, and shoved his bleeding wound against my mouth so that before I could react I felt the pull of power that came when one drop of blood touched my tongue. I hated him. My body struggled, but my mouth was pulling at his blood, trying to draw more into me, and then Briar let go of me and shoved me onto the couch.

I felt the power of his blood pulse through me, burning my skin, and I tried to resist it. Briar only watched, standing over me as I bent my knees and pushed my hands against the couch. But it was too much. Before I knew it, I was touching my stomach, my neck, and then my breasts. I was squirming against the couch in ecstasy, forgetting everything that had just happened and only trying to remove my clothes and to get this excess heat out of me. I wanted it to spread into whatever was around me and to be drawn from me. I just knew it would feel like the best thing ever.

I had taken off my shirt, touching my skin and feeling the ecstasy that came with each touch. I pulled my bra off easily, loving the feel of having nothing binding my skin. I wanted to be exposed completely, to have everything easy to be taken. I had trouble pulling off my pants, twisting around and gasping at each touch of fabric against my skin. I was drowning in the power pulsing through me, and I wanted it taken out of me.

Then Briar was ripping at my jeans, tearing the fabric off of me, and his presence drew me to him. "Please," I called to him as he barely touched my now bare legs. It was torture, feeling his cool fingertips draw at my boiling blood, just teasing me. Any attempt I made to get closer to him, he only inhibited by pulling away. "Please."

"I need you to understand," He said darkly, "You're mine. You're no one else's. You don't even belong to yourself. You're mine." A curse. A curse. The words were echoing in the back of my head. It was a warning that I was failing to hear through the ecstasy, the power, and the warmth.

"I'm yours," I told him, moaning at the thought of having the release I was waiting for. "Please."

Briar was then on top of me, pushing his bare skin against me so suddenly that I lost my breath. His lips were on mine, drawing the warmth from my flesh into his, and I only pushed against him more desperately. He moved his lips over my face, my eyes, my cheek, my jaw, and down to my neck. I was panting as if I were in a full sprint.

"Take me," I begged, "Please. Take all of me."

He bit into my neck, causing a sharp pain that was immediately drowned by the intense pleasure throughout my body. Briar pulled me up against him, sitting up so that I was wrapped around him with my legs and arms, and bit deeper into my neck to draw my blood into him. I didn't care if he took it all. I just wanted to feel this release forever. I was desperate for it. It was like the highest trip any drug could give.

"I'm yours," I whispered submissively, repeating it into his ear until my voice was disappearing and my grip was fading. Then there was the cold in my flesh and the darkness in my eyes until there was nothing else but unconsciousness.


	15. Chapter 15

**Fifteen**

I opened my eyes to light, fully expecting it to either blind or hurt me in some way or form of a hangover, but once again there was only a feeling of being fully energized and overall healthy. I was in my bedroom, which I didn't remember coming in here, and when I looked down I found I was dressed in a T-shirt and panties. It was as if I had imagined the whole night last night. Only when I reached up to my neck, I found a significant difference when my fingertips touched a rather sore bite mark.

Automatically, I jumped out of my bed and looked in my vanity mirror, moving my wild red hair to the side in order to look at the wound on my neck. Sure enough, there were two scabbed over but fresh marks where Briar's fangs had pierced my skin. I was confused at first. The last time he had bitten me at Club Benz, he had healed the bite so that it left no mark at all. This time, even though he forcefully fed me his blood… I tried to not think about it… the mark was still there clearly.

Perhaps it was something of a stamp of property for him. I allowed myself to think about what had happened last night. Through the betrayal, fear, and anger that came with thinking about last night, I also felt confusion. I picked at the bite mark on my neck, thinking about the events through steps. He drives away my family and friends… feeds me his blood so I'd become submissive and easily manipulated… all so he could let me know he considered my existence as his property.

Or maybe… he wanted… no he _had_ to manipulate me to accepting that I was his. Maybe that's what he was doing. He fed me his blood so that he could get me to say I was his, and after that he bit and fed from me. He left his mark… maybe it was a type of claiming.

I tried to think about what advice Brielle had unknowingly given me about this situation. She had mentioned a secret vampire world. Maybe there were rules Briar had to follow in order to keep me for himself. Maybe he was worried other vampires would come for me… or maybe he was just manipulative, possessive, and corrupting. I couldn't be sure.

I decided, due to my lack of resources and lack of friends, to use the internet. I tried researching vampires first. Failed… miserably. Honestly, I have no idea how people in the movies do this; where they type in whatever they want to find and it miraculously shows up within the first page. I looked up all types of things from _vampire claiming_ to _vampire bites_ to _vampires goddamit help me_ and nothing really came up except stuff from fanatic people who loved stories and people who claimed to be vampires or werewolves or both. There were even a lot of videos of "vampires" biting people, though most if not all of it was fake acting.

Instead, I looked for forums, and began making a bunch of random posts on random sites stating in short my situation as an anonymous person not even naming Briar's or anyone I knew and asking for help understanding what was happening. I explained the feeling of feeding from Briar's blood, meeting his vampire friend's at the club, and being forced to watch him murder people. I explained his ability to control minds and his need to disappear during the day. I copy and pasted each post on each forum and then I sighed as what responses I did get within a short time usually were people stating their own crazy stories, saying they were vampires, laughing at me, telling me I'm hallucinating or lying, and ultimately telling me nothing.

I sighed before pushing away from my laptop and pulling off my shirt. I searched through my closet and put on a casual summer dress, put on a bit of makeup, and brushed through my locks. I left my hair down as opposed to what I'd normally want to do in the summer heat, wanting to keep my bite mark on my neck covered until it was healed.

I didn't know where exactly I was planning on going, only that I was leaving. I got in my car, started it, and drove away. I wasn't planning on coming back anytime soon. This time, I wasn't afraid that Briar would take revenge on my disappearance by attacking my family or friends. Something told me he'd be more busy looking for me than going after them, especially seeing as I was driving away from their general direction.

I made a day of it. I drove to different stores, looking at sunglasses and buying snacks and small items. I stopped at a fair even later on in the afternoon and pleased myself by riding on multiple machines that sometimes were soothing while others were exciting. I bought cotton candy and snow cones. And then I drove further away.

When the sun settled, I still kept driving. I had hip hop playing on my radio quietly, thinking only about driving as far away as I could. But then after a few hours into the darkness, I was in need of a bathroom and a gas refill. I stopped at the next gas station I saw, pulling up to a pump, and turned off my vehicle. After a moment of looking around outside suspiciously, I got out and moved around to my pump. I put the gas pump nozzle into my fuel tank and waited. It was eerie to see nobody here at the gas station with me, but at the same time it was preferred.

The pump stopped when it reached the amount I paid for and I put the nozzle back into the pump and shut my gas tank. Then I headed inside to use the bathroom and perhaps get some skittles or something. When I walked in, I nodded at the bored man behind the counter and saw no one else was here. I went into the bathroom and when finished I came out to find the man behind the counter was gone. For a second, I stared at the empty area behind the counter. I wanted to look for him, to assure myself that I was just being paranoid, but instead I walked speedily outside of the station and towards my car.

When I reached my car, I moved to open my door and a hand grabbed my wrist roughly and pulled it away. I turned my head to see a woman… she was familiar. She had her brunette hair up in a ponytail, and was looking at me dully with greyish blue eyes above her high cheekbones and gorgeous soft jawline. I opened my mouth in confusion to ask who she was but the sound of movement behind me made me forget what I was saying and my wrist was released so I could look around. There was a man with blue eyes and brown hair, tall and bulky, to my left, and behind me was what seemed like the leader. He also had brown hair, though shaved short, and brown eyes. He smiled when I looked at him and I suddenly knew who they were.

It was the three vampires from Club Benz.

"How'd you find me," I asked in confusion. It would be one thing if they had just noticed a number short in the obituaries or saw me around town and figured out where I lived… but I was far away from home now and in the middle of nowhere. I didn't expect these three out of any vampire to find me.

"We've been following you," the lead vampire said simply, "Well… we went looking for Briar last night and found you. Then we had you followed so that we could keep track of you during the day." I was leaning against my car now, surrounded in triangle formation by these three. It was my death. They were here to get rid of a loose end. But I didn't scream or run or beg for my life. I only ignored to two other vampires and looked at the leader carefully.

"We're here to keep Briar from being stupid," The man told me, preparing to explain fully but the woman to my right interrupted.

"Will, let's just kill her already before he shows up," She suggested, looking down the road as if Briar would appear any second. I guess it was pretty stupid of me to go wandering far enough away from him to hope for any help by him.

"Very well then, you can have her, Leslie," Will stated, swiping his hand in my direction as if it was a small matter. I considered requesting him to wait, to ask what he meant by keeping Briar from being stupid, and how killing me would solve that. Instead, I turned my eyes from Will to Leslie as she moved happily towards me. She grabbed my upper arms, causing me to widen my eyes and raise my shoulders up as if I could hide my flesh. Then she showed her fangs threateningly and moved forward swiftly to bite into my flesh. I closed my eyes, feeling my heart thrash in a panic, and wished that Briar was here. The small wish was so clear in my head like a shock from my neck down through my body, startling me, so that I didn't even notice that Leslie wasn't biting into me.

"Fuck," Leslie said exasperated, "Will, he did something stupid."

I was suddenly pushed towards Will, stumbling a bit, and then groaned when Leslie grabbed a handful of my hair to pull my head back which shot pain through my scalp. Will paused, looking at my neck where the fresh mark was clear on my skin. He suddenly didn't look as pleasant as he had all the times I had seen him. Apparently this displeased him greatly. The third vampire moved next to Will to look as well out of curiosity.

"Oh, Damn, Briar's gonna get himself killed," The man laughed, obviously finding the situation a lot more humorous than the other two. He hit Will in the arm and Will hit him back a lot harder, making the man look at him almost offended. "Well then what do you guys wanna do if not just give her back to him? The bond makes us unable to bite her and the law forbids us to kill her so…"

"We could do what the Authority does," Leslie said to Will, tugging on my hair more so that water stung my eyes from the burning in my scalp. "Except leave out the killing Briar part… You and Eli can grab Briar while I keep this one hidden. The rest will be easy." Will was looking at me carefully, thinking through the idea Leslie had.

I didn't get to figure out what they had planned. Suddenly, Will and Eli (I assumed) were knocked back and then Leslie was pulled away from me, nearly taking my scalp with her. I reached up and grabbed my head as if trying to put my scalp and hair back on like a wig, though it all was still there, and looked around to see Briar standing in front of Leslie with what looked like his hand through the bottom of her chest. There was immense pain in Leslie's face and blood was pouring down her chest and Briar's arm.

"Briar, stop," Will yelled, holding his hands up, "We didn't know she was yours. We swear it. We just thought she got away from that Club and you know the laws…" I moved away from them all, towards my driver's side door of my car. Maybe I could just drive away and no one would notice.

"Yeah, man, did you forget about the laws," Eli asked, obviously a bit pissed off from the sudden attack. He was wiping down his torn pants from the fall he'd taken and glaring at Briar, who was only side glancing at them and still had his grip inside Leslie's body. "Why is this girl even alive?" Briar didn't look guilty or anything short of murderous. Will was still trying to step a bit closer at a time, but when he moved each time Briar would move as well, causing Leslie to cry out.

"We'll leave it alone," Will told him, gesturing at Eli who had started to object to shut up, before looking at Briar again, "No worries from us. We'll let you go on your way. Just let her go." I started to understand that Leslie and Will obviously had their own thing happening. I wondered if Eli ever felt like the permanent third wheel.

Briar suddenly pulled his hand out of Leslie's body, tossing her towards Will. Then his eyes were on me, indicating that he noticed I was trying to sneak back into my car unheard, and I quit straining at opening my door. Then he was looking back at the other three vampires who I had initially thought were friends of Briar. Perhaps the friendship was one-sided…

"I don't want to see any of you near her again," Briar said darkly, grabbing my arm just above my elbow with his bloodied hand roughly. He pulled me around the car, opening the passenger side and shoving me in rather roughly, and then went back around to the driver's side. The other vampires only watched now. That is, until Briar was seated in the driver's seat and holding his bloody hand to me for what I assumed was my keys.

"Briar," Will was saying, moving close to the driver's side window, and glancing at me, "You know the laws. You kill her, turn her, or make her disappear as a slave _away_ from society. There's no letting a human live their normal life after they've seen us. It's the law…" Briar only started the car in silence and Will tapped on the door in annoyance before pushing away.

"Fine, get yourself killed, see if we care," Eli called from behind Will as Briar drove us away from them. I watched them in the mirror, watching us leaving before disappearing themselves. And then I looked at Briar, feeling a bit shy now that I knew he was doing something unusual by letting me sort of live my life, and looked at my hands. There was a bruise forming on my wrist from where Leslie had grabbed me. But I wasn't going to complain. I felt like a child in trouble for stealing a piece of cake off the table without permission. But at the same time, I didn't feel like I should apologize. Briar was the one ruining my life and putting me in these situations…

"I'm taking you to my house. You won't be allowed to leave. Ever," Briar suddenly said from beside me sternly. I hesitated, not sure if I had heard right. First of all… he had a house? And secondly, I'm going to be stuck there forever? I think not…

"No," I responded shortly.

"You'll be my slave. I'll feed from you when I want to… or when you want me to."

"No. I won't."

"You won't see any other humans besides other slaves."

"No."

"And you'll be safe," He finished without listening to my protests.

"Until you're finished with me," I snapped, and I reached over to pull on the steering wheel hard, making the car swerve with a sharp jerk. It was almost like time slowed down and then sped back up in fast forward before suddenly with the screech of rubber and the crunch of metal we were stopped in a ditch. I hesitated, my mind a bit fuzzy, but then the reminder in my head to get the fuck away from Briar made me forgo any pain I might have at the somewhat minor wreck and unbuckle my seatbelt before exiting the car. I quickly began running down the road in full sprint.

It was pointless, of course. I didn't get five feet before Briar was in front of me, looking rather… annoyed if anything. But I didn't wait for him to pull me to wherever he was taking me. Instead, I moved to go around him, shoving him pitifully. Briar only grabbed my arms and swung me around to keep me from going wherever I was going; I wasn't sure. I hit him uselessly and tried to pull away, annoying him enough to make him toss me on the ground. The road cement stung rough against my soft skin, being that I was still merely in a summer dress, but before I could get up to move anywhere Briar was on top of me, holding me down by the wrists.

"I won't let you take away my life to be your slave," I said stubbornly, glaring at him.

"Evangeline," He called, frustration clear behind his almost desperate plea, "You're killing me."

"Please," I pleaded, sensing a bit a leeway in the response, "Please, don't take this away from me. Please." I stopped because I could see anger flashing through his eyes. He didn't like when I begged, so I only looked at him, pleading with my eyes.

"Perhaps you'd rather one of the other two options then," Briar said darkly, "Being turned?"

I hesitated completely, remembering Brielle telling me about how the girl… how I would be turned and end up killing everyone in my life myself. I shook my head firmly.

"No. No way," I rejected. Briar glared at me.

"Well then," He answered, and suddenly his hands were around my neck. I reached quickly to wrap my hands around his wrist, lifting my back as if I could push him off, and tensed up before going solid still. He hadn't squeezed enough to prevent me from breathing, just enough to indicate he was planning to. "Perhaps now is a better time than any to just kill you."

I didn't struggle or cry or beg. Instead, I just looked into his beautiful blue eyes without flinching, looking for that hint that said he was going to do it for certain. I kept my grip on his wrist, feeling my heart pounding in my throat. It was as if he had my heart in his hands, determining if he should squeeze it until it faded into nothing or not.

When he didn't squeeze further, I moved to push myself up into sitting position slowly. Briar kept his hands around my neck uncertainly, but didn't keep me from sitting up. Then I lightly pushed him until he was sitting down as well and moved over his legs until I was sitting in his lap straddling him with my face close to his. He lightly moved his hands from my neck to my arms and then my waist, looking at me almost hopefully.

"I'm yours," I told him in a whisper, looking into his eyes which were very hypnotizing. I couldn't help but feel so drawn to this man… this vampire. He was the only man I'd ever had sex with (and remembered it) and definitely very unique. Just so… dangerous… perhaps he was attached to me enough to be convinced. "You don't have to… to keep me hidden anywhere. I won't tell anyone about you. We can still be together, Briar. I just don't want to lose my family forever and never get to figure out what to do with my life. I want to finish my schooling, to go to parties maybe, and to _live_."

Briar seemed to be thinking this over, but didn't seem to agree with this. "How long until you're done with your school?"

I hesitated. I never had been sure what I was going to do in my life, so I wasn't sure how much college I'd need. If I went for college teaching, it'd be more than four years by far. But I didn't want to give him a big number that made him automatically decline.

"Two more years and I'll have my degree," I answered truthfully. I was going into my third year of college after this summer, so two more years and I'd have my bachelors in English.

For a moment, he looked away and I began kissing his jaw sweetly, hoping it would make him relax and trust me more. Then he looked back to me and sighed, rolling his eyes slowly. "Fine," Briar said bitterly, "I'll let you finish college. But then you're mine." I didn't care about the last part. I had just bought myself two years to come up with a way to escape the situation I would ultimately end up in. I smiled brightly; glad I finally got something going my way, and hugged him happily.

"I would say thank you," I laughed a little bit, earning a threatening look from Briar.

"Did you have to wreck the car, though," Briar asked, glancing at the car in the ditch that was probably not going to be working anytime soon.

"Desperate times," I responded with a shrug.


	16. Chapter 16

**Sixteen**

I was surprised by loneliness in the following days and nights. Briar had disappeared completely after our sort-of road trip. I wondered if maybe he had changed his mind about me and was leaving me forever. A part of me really liked this idea, but another part of me reached to the bite mark on my neck and feared he wouldn't come back. I even began inspecting the guest house, finding no evidence of him anywhere. During the day, he wasn't even locked in that secret room he had claimed. It was empty.

After two weeks, I began to crave other people around me and being that Brielle was unable to talk to me anymore I sent a call to my parents to let them know that I wanted to come spend time with them. I suggested that it would be for the rest of my summer, though it would only be until Briar showed up again. I told myself that if he appeared at our main home, I'd come back to the guest house until college to keep him away from my family as much as possible.

When I got to the Delaney house, something that was sometimes referred to as a mansion by those who thought it was as big as one, my parents were extremely happy to see me alive and well. I had worried them near to death staying at the guest house where Lydia had died.

My summer went by slowly. I didn't feel up to swimming much with the family or enjoying the sun. Family dinners were spent with me in silence, picking at the food in my plate. In my room at night, I leaned against my window in my bedroom with it opened and touched the mark on my neck to remind me of him. He never came.

School was starting back up again. I already had my classes picked out from last semester, and so the only thing I had to do was move into my dorms. Normally, Brielle and I would be roommates again, but I called ahead to have me placed in a private dorm room to avoid future damages to other's lives. Then again, I began to doubt I would be seeing Briar again.

Before I knew it, I was shuffling from class to class. It was very different this year, not having Brielle around to keep me in the social loop. There were so many new faces, and I felt out of place. I began wearing the simplest clothes, sometimes even sweatpants and a t-shirt, and avoiding group projects completely. I didn't even go to the campus cafeteria in an attempt to avoid talking to people I didn't know.

The only thing I did was focus on my classes, writing essays back to back, and reading everything I was required. All my classes were English related except for a few extracurricular courses now that my first two years were over and I was done with the basics. I didn't go to any parties anymore. I just thought about Briar. I even walked down to the gas station for Icee's, stopping at the alley to look around as if Briar would be hiding there. I barely slept at night, spending my time staring outside my dorm window for no reason. It was as if I was lifeless; the excitement gone forever. The only thing left was me; lost.

Months went by into my semester. Summer had turned to Fall and Fall was beginning to head into Winter. My grades were near perfect and my social life was gone in the wind. Occasionally I'd glimpse Brielle around the campus, though the minute she'd see me she'd just walk away from me. I didn't try to push her, knowing it probably completely confused her every time she found herself heading the opposite direction as me against her will. It only reminded me that he did exist and that I hadn't imagined the whole summer.

I found myself around 3a.m. in my room, looking out my window over the parking lot below. I was now on the 5th floor. The air was cold, blowing through the window and into my room, twisting around my body before going back outside. On whim, I began to climb outside of my window, wanting to sit on the edge with the ground far below me like I had with Briar last semester.

I got maybe one foot onto the edge before there was a knock on my door. I hesitated, but another knock made me pull myself away from the window and head towards my door. I didn't even realize I only had on a T-shirt and short shorts and my hair gathered to a low side ponytail, though it was going on to be freezing in my room. When I opened the door, there was a guy and a chick standing there with duffel bags over their shoulders. They both had sandy blonde hair and dark brown eyes. They looked related in their tall built stature.

For a minute, they only looked at me and me at them. And then I said, "Hey… no guys in the dorm after midnight." They turned to glance at each other and then the girl swung her duffle bag around and hit me over the head swiftly, knocking me senseless into the ground before they stepped over me and shut the door behind them.

I laid half-conscious on the ground, waiting for my vision to come through the pain in my head. When I finally started regaining my senses, I reached to my head to see if there was severe damage, but there wasn't too much blood soaking my face. The only blood I found was that I could taste from my lip, which was busted, and a small area on the side of my head where the impact had been. I groaned, pushing myself up from the floor of my dorm and turned around.

The couple had opened their duffle bags onto my bed, revealing knives, guns, small spear-like weapons, containers of random stuff, and etc. I was smart enough not to point out that guns weren't allowed in the dorms either. Instead, I bent my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them, and hoped that they weren't here to just kill me. I had to have the worse luck in the world.

The woman threw some rope followed by tape on the bed and elbowed the guy. "You tie her up, Bowen," She said, messing with an object she had pulled out of the bag. The guy glanced at me uncertainly, noticing I was conscious probably, and looked back at the girl.

"You know I don't like messing with the girls, Alisa," He told her and then quietly added, "It makes me feel bad."

She laughed, "You're not gonna hurt her, just tie her up so she doesn't try to hurt us. You know how claimed ones get."

"You think she'll try to call him?"

She glanced at me and then said loudly, "If you call him, we'll kill you." I had no idea what they were talking about, so I didn't try to say anything against her. She looked at the guy and shrugged. "Now go tie her up." The guy, Bowen if I heard right, grabbed the rope and tape and began to move towards me. I gave him my most pathetic look, pleading him not to touch me, and he hesitated.

"Aw…," He attempted to move closer, and I purposely flinched unlike I ever had even with vampires coming at me, moving closer to myself. It successfully made him hesitate again. "Aw man… Ali, you're gonna have to do this. She's so cute." I felt slightly offended at that, but kept my wide-eyed innocent gaze on his, feigning to be timid and frightened.

Alisa, the woman, looked back and scoffed before rolling her eyes. "Really, Bo, you've seriously got to man up. I mean we kill vampires for fuck's sake, you can't have a little doe-eyed girl stopping you," But she moved away from the bed to grab the rope and tape and move quickly towards me. Before I could try any attempt of innocence on her, she had me pinned down on my stomach, making me gasp in pain as she tied the rope around my wrists. After that, she ripped off a piece of duct tape and put it over my mouth.

"You sure she's the one," Bowen asked from the bags across the room, having not watched the whole time as I got bound and gagged. Alisa grabbed my hair, pulling my head up and to one side painfully. She looked at my right shoulder, not seeing anything, and moved me again to look at my left to see the bite mark that was now just a scar.

"Yep, I see the mark here," She told him, dropping my hair so that my head met the ground hard enough to be painful but not hard enough to do any damage. "You think he'll be here tonight?" She grabbed what looked like a cross bow and some silver spears… stakes, they looked like stakes… and she pulled a chair up the open window to sit down and prop her feet up to the window.

"Probably," Bowen answered easily, pulling a chair with his gun and some stakes with him towards the door near where I was. He looked at me tied on the ground and hesitated. "Ali, can I have the window. She's looking at me."

Alisa scoffed again, not moving from her spot. "You can hit her over the head if you want, but the window's mine." Bowen tisked and sat down in his chair, aiming his gun at the door and ignoring me. They sat in their position, dead quiet, for hours. I could imagine why Alisa had wanted the window over the door. It was much more interesting to watch the night than to watch a door. I, on the other hand, was severely uncomfortable. I knew they were here for Briar, and it worried me that they'd be upset once they found out he hadn't been with me since… the beginning of the summer.

I considered ways to try to escape, but nothing came to mind. I could always try to get out of my ropes, knowing that the Bowen guy wouldn't hurt me if I did, but he'd probably call Alisa over and she obviously had no problem with hurting a girl. When I began to see the sky lighten just the tiniest bit, I decided to use my time to make Bowen feel as guilty as I could, shivering clearly on the ground and building tears into my eyes.

For a while, Bowen avoided looking at me excellently. But as time went by, he glanced at me to see my pitiful state, and quickly looked away. I thought about how much I missed Briar, Brielle, and my old life. I thought about how horrible my life had to be to find myself on the ground freezing in my own dorm. And it helped me bring tears down my face. Bowen glanced over again and rolled his eyes away, frustrated with himself probably. I felt a bit of blood from the earlier wound dried on the side of my face, and made sure that he could see it. When he glanced again, probably against his will, he made a noise.

"Aliiiii," He groaned, "Trade me spots, _please_. Or do something about the girl, she's so… uughh…" Alisa groaned as well, pulling her legs off of the window sill to stand up. "What time is it anyway?"

"Nearly six," Alisa said, looking at her watch on her wrist, "Weird. They don't usually leave their slaves alone when the day comes."

"Well, I already said it was weird that she was in college in the first place. They don't let their slaves walk about freely, either," Bowen told her, moving away from me to go by the window. Alisa only looked at me carefully, and then she moved towards me, pulling me up by the arm roughly so that I was in sitting position. She shoved me against the wall behind me, and ripped the tape off of my mouth painfully. I didn't open my mouth, afraid if I said anything she'd hit me.

"Where's your master," She asked me threateningly.

"You know they never tell that," Bowen said in a sing-song voice behind her, but she continued to glare at me.

"I… I don't have a master," I responded, confused. "If you mean Briar, he's not my master." The thought of saying I had some master like I was some slave girl bothered me.

"You have the mark of slavery, do you not," She more like stated than asked.

I hesitated. "I was bitten…"

"And claimed." That definitely wasn't a question.

"If you say so," I responded. Alisa rolled her eyes, looking back at Bowen, and then when she looked back at me she slammed a hand over my face sharply. I cried out at the pain, but she grabbed my ear before pulling my head back to the side so that I had to look at her again.

"I say so," She snapped. "Where's the one who claimed you?" I whimpered, knowing that if they didn't already believe what I'd said then I didn't know what to tell them.

"I don't know," I answered, and received another sharp pain to my face.

"You can start talking anytime now," Alisa told me, her whole stature extremely intimidating. I only looked at her with fear, wondering if I was going to be tortured for Briar's whereabouts that I didn't know of. When I didn't say anything, she raised a knife to my leg, preparing to cut into my flesh.

"I made a deal," I cried out, panicked, "I made a deal with him! Please! Please…" She covered my mouth sharply, holding up a finger with her knife under it to her lips. I hadn't realized I had started answering in a loud high pitched panicked manor.

After a moment, she released me and moved her knife in front of me threateningly. "Continue."

"He… he said he wanted to take me to his home to be… to be his slave," I stumbled over my own thoughts and hoped it didn't piss her off. "I didn't want to go. I made a deal. I finish college and then I said I'd go. I… I don't want to go, I just… I was buying time…"

"Ah. Ah," Alisa interrupted me before I started babbling, "Vampires don't make deals. They have laws." She moved forward, covering my mouth, and pressed the knife against my skin. I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain.

"Ali, wait," Bowen said, and Alisa paused, looking back at him with irritation. "I mean, she did post that stuff on those forums… and she's here at her college. Maybe she's telling the truth." I wanted to kick myself. I had forgotten the posts I had made on all those websites when I had been trying to figure out what the bite mark meant.

"Bowen, you know they lie, they're brainwashed," Alisa answered with irritation.

"I know that, I'm just saying… Vampires aren't supposed to let any human talk about them in the first place, and she was free to post those things online for everyone to see. Vampires aren't supposed to let their slaves into society especially unattended, and she's going to college… Maybe this is a different situation." I was extremely grateful that at least one of them was sane. Alisa only looked at Bowen, obvious disbelief written across her face, but then she sighed.

"Fine," She said, moving away from me, "You play good cop." She passed by him, moving to her seat by the window, and left Bowen with me. I felt a little bit safer, but it could all just be an act. For all I know, he was as psychotic as Briar and would try to strangle me.

Bowen moved to the bed, grabbing a bottle of water, and came back to me. He opened it and then held it out reproachfully towards my mouth, waiting for my permission. I hesitated, but then moved forward a bit and opened my mouth so that he could tip the bottle against my lips and let me have a drink. After a moment, he pulled the bottle away, only spilling a bit.

"We saw your forums posts while looking through news articles on the internet for vampire-like activities around this state. All of the things you mentioned were incredibly accurate to the true vampires, so we tracked down your I.P. address and found out your information," Bowen explained to me simply. "We're vampire hunters." I wouldn't have believed it normally, but it was quite obvious already. All the weapons, questioning where Briar was, and knowledge about vampires…

"I'm not brainwashed," I said in a hushed voice. Then I thought about the way I was drawn to Briar like an addict and the lifelessness I've been in since he'd been gone. "Well… maybe a little bit."

Bowen laughed shortly, glancing at Alisa who was ignoring us determinedly. "Or maybe not. Brainwashed slaves don't normally realize they're brainwashed," He told me warmly, "There's hope in you yet."

"Thanks," I answered quietly. "I don't know where he is. I didn't know he'd leave… I just thought he wouldn't take me away until I was done here. But the next day after I made the deal, he was just…" I didn't mean to sound sad, not wanting to let them know I had feelings for Briar. Crazy feelings… stupid feelings, feelings that Brielle had already told me were disturbing. I shouldn't feel any affection for a murderous, possessive, evil vampire. And yet I did.

"Perhaps you could call him," Bowen suggested, and Alisa was suddenly protesting.

"No _way_," She snapped, "If she calls him, he'll know we're here. Element of surprise: gone."

"Yeah, but if he's on vacation for the next couple of years what the Hell do you expect we should do," Bowen snapped back. They were definitely related. Probably brother and sister if not close cousins.

"I don't have his number," I interrupted lamely. They both paused, looking at me, and then Bowen all out laughed. Alisa hit his arm to indicate that he needed to shut up, rolling her eyes.

"Okay, I officially believe your story," Alisa said, "You can't be that genius of a liar." Well… I was confused.

"His number…," Bowen laughed again, "That's good."

"But I don't," I answered, confused. What the fuck else did they mean by call if not by number?

"Calling your Master is something slaves can do through the bond; the mark," Alisa explained to me, moving to remove the ropes from my hands that were still behind my back, "You find that connection, call out to him or her, and they get a kind of psychic message. They'll know where your exact location is and the state of your mind including what information you are thinking, seeing, smelling, and so on."

"Oh…," I hesitated, not sure if there was a specific thing I had to do in order to call on Briar. I wasn't even sure if I wanted him to come here. Sure, these people had tied me up and attacked me in my own dorm, but I wasn't one to wish death on every person who looked at me wrong. Besides, Bowen didn't seem so bad.

"It's also stupid of us to have her call him," Alisa was speaking to Bowen now, "You know he'll have knowledge of us and what we have with us, it could get us killed…" Bowen suddenly pulled Alisa away from where I was, dragging her over to a corner before they started hissing things at each other unintelligible from where I was. There were lots of gestures towards me, mostly angry ones from Alisa, but finally they seemed to have come up with a solution because they were walking back.

"Okay, you call him, we're going to go," Bowen said to me, confusing me, "If you don't call him, when we come back it won't be pleasant…" They were gathering their things and getting ready to leave.

"When do I-," I started, but Alisa interrupted. She grabbed a watch, clicking it repeatedly until she was satisfied, before she showed it to me.

"Wait until this timer goes off after we leave and then call him."

"But, how do I-," I started again, but Bowen interrupted.

"Just think about him, find that connection, and try to contact him mentally. Maybe like call his name mentally or just wish for him to be here or… you'll figure it out. It's not very difficult." Then Alisa started the timer, put it in front of me, and they were disappearing out my door. I considered not calling for Briar at all, but that would mean Alisa and Bowen would be back and probably torture me until I did call him.

Bowen hesitated as he was leaving and turned to me. "We'll be back for you. Just be strong; we'll help you." Before I could say anything else, he was gone with Alisa.

So I began waiting for the timer to go off. I did miss Briar, even though he was extremely possessive and insane. Perhaps he'd be happy to see me. Maybe he hadn't actually left me at all but was waiting just out of sight for me to call him. Maybe Bowen and Alisa would be smart and just disappear forever. I didn't want them to kill Briar, and I didn't want Briar to kill them as well… The timer beeped after thirty minutes of waiting.

I closed my eyes and focused on Briar. Nothing happened. I frowned. How am I supposed to call him? I stayed in that position, still tied up, for a long time. Then I groaned. My whole body was sore from the position I had been in all night. Daylight was coming and if I didn't call quick, Briar wouldn't be able to come until dark fell again. I tried to twist out of my binds, but they were strong and impossible to get out of with my lack of skill. I wished Briar was here.

The minute I felt the wish, I felt the familiar shock throughout my body starting from my neck… from my mark. It startled me, but then it was gone just as quickly. It reminded me of the last shock I had had when the three vampires had me at the gas station. Was that how I called Briar? Was that how he showed up not long as if he knew where I was and what was happening?

I was now staring at the window where the sky was getting lighter slowly. He wouldn't come. I just knew it. It was too close to the sun rising. He wouldn't risk being burnt to death by the sun just to come help me, who he felt nothing but a weird possessiveness for. I didn't consider Briar to be one who would sacrifice his life to help a useless human like me out of situations like this. Plus, he would know about the hunters. This would be too dangerous for him.

Then suddenly, there were those gorgeous blue eyes in front of me. Without realizing it, I was smiling brightly in relief, causing Briar to look startled and then smirk almost arrogantly.

"You look happy to see me," He said with his familiar sly undertone as if he were trying to prove to me that he didn't actually care about seeing me.

"There's hunters here," I told him quietly, not sure why I was suddenly feeling protective of him.

"They're gone," He responded, reaching behind me to easily rip the rope from my wrists. I moved my hands in front of me, rubbing my wrists and looking at Briar for a moment wondering if he meant he had killed them.

"Gone?"

"I searched the area before coming in here looking for them, but they're good at covering their tracks. They probably just wanted me to come back into your life and will probably try to kill me later. If they try it, I'll kill them," Briar told me, glancing at the window where the sun was beginning to rise quickly, "I'm going to have to stay here for the day."

"Why do you have to kill them," I asked sadly, "I don't want you to hurt them…"

"You don't tell me what to do," Briar snapped, his eyes flashing familiarly dangerous, "They are here to kill me. They're dead." He left me on the ground, grabbing a sheet and some duct tape from my desk drawer and began covering the window determinedly. I hesitated, standing up, and then quickly opened my door and ran down the hall. I didn't get far, of course, before Briar was blocking me.

"And where do you think you're going," He asked, "You're the one who called me, you know."

"I…," I hesitated, "I need to use the bathroom." Briar looked at me suspiciously, but then moved aside so that I could walk a little ways past him and then to the right into the bathroom. I guess it was partially true, being that I had been tied all night and my bladder was killing me. After I was done, I left the bathroom to find Briar leaning against the wall and waiting for me. There was a dread deep inside me, knowing that I was in his grip again and that he would probably kill within seconds of being near me. All he did was kill people around me.

I headed back into my room, where it was darkened from the covered window. Briar came in behind me, locking the door, and pointed towards the bed. I looked over to see that it had been stripped except for a blanket that covered the sides of the bed to the floor. I looked at Briar to see him gesture at the bed again, and I moved closer to move the blanket up from the floor to look under my bed. There was a setup of blankets and pillows under to bed sort of like a coffin. I hesitated, knowing what Briar wanted, and then crawling under the bed towards the wall, and when I was settled I felt Briar climb next to me.

He let the cover fall so that there was no light at all and then I felt his arm snake around my waist, pulling me to him closely. I opened my eyes to see only a small reflection of his eyes in the dark looking at me. For a moment, I was afraid of the close space, and being so close to something like Briar. But then I sighed and moved closer to him until I led my head against his chest and twisted my legs through his.

"What if they are just expecting you to sleep here," I asked curiously, "Wouldn't they just kill you in your sleep?"

"They won't risk it with you so close," He simply said, and I wondered if that was the reason he finally wanted me to stay near him during the day. As some sort of shield… "You don't have to worry, I'm never completely asleep, if someone opens the door or window, it'll be the last thing they do."

And even though usually my insomnia kept me up almost nonstop, I suddenly felt tired and… for some odd reason… safe. I fell asleep in Briar's grip.


	17. Chapter 17

**Seventeen**

I woke up at some time, confused as to why it was so dark and where I was, before I remembered what had happened. Automatically, I noticed Briar's arm around me, his hand lightly over mine as I had changed my position while I slept and was lying with my back pressed against him. Absently, I moved my hand under his, feeling his fingertips touching mine. It was somewhat comforting, if I just thought of Briar as being a normal man who was just sleeping next to me without having ever hurt anyone in my life…

I moved to roll around to face him and as I did he suddenly tightened his grip on my hand sharply, making me wince. For a moment, I waited for his grip to lessen, but when it didn't I began to try to twist it from his grip. Instead of releasing me, his hand tightened even more, making me gasp and struggle harder. I faced Briar to see his eyes were closed and he looked relatively dead. But each time I struggled to get him off of me, he only tightened like a death trap.

"Briar," I called, trying to wake him up, remembering how he had told me he didn't ever completely sleep. Obviously, he had lied at least a bit because instead of waking up his arms were squeezing around me, pushing me to him in a suffocating grip. I began to panic. "Briar!" I was struggling to breathe, trying to kick at him and push away. There was a growl rumbling in his chest at my movement, and as I was weakening and losing oxygen, his eyes opened sharply. Suddenly, I had air in my chest again and could breathe.

"You shouldn't move too much when I'm sleeping," Briar said to me darkly, "It makes my subconscious mind feel threatened." I only led still on my back, breathing deeply and wincing at the pain in my wrist. And then I was sharply pulled against Briar to face him, his lips just barely inches from brushing over mine.

"I'm sorry," I responded quickly, out of the belief that he was about to hurt me again.

"You've missed me," Briar suddenly said, ignoring my small panic. "I heard it in your call. You've been… bored." He was watching my face easily, something hungry behind his eyes. I couldn't guess if it was desire or thirst for blood.

"I… I can't stop thinking about you," I answered truthfully, feeling him stiffen around me as if announcing any feelings for him was offensive. "I shouldn't want to see you, especially because of what you are and the things you do… but I can't stop myself from thinking about you." For a moment, I only watched him as he looked at me closely, unsure of what to do now that the man I'd had stuck in my blood was back from his months of absence. And I surprised myself by moving forward enough to press my lips over his lightly, as if he were a timid ghost that would disappear at any fast movement or touch.

Suddenly, Briar moved away, his eyes closing and his expression being hidden in the dark. "Leave," He ordered darkly, making me hesitate. I didn't think that when he said he wasn't done with me, he meant he would be like this… still unwilling to show any signs of caring about me beyond being protective of a human pet. I suddenly felt offended.

"Fine," I snapped, "I wish you would just tell me what you want."

I crawled over him bitterly, moving out from under the bed into a dark dorm room. I had missed a whole day of classes because of this. I was going to have to see if I could catch my professors and see if I could recover my lost education for the day. But when I was in the middle of the room, heading towards the door, I was suddenly being pinned to the ground on my back. Briar was above me and his hands were under me against my lower back and over my breasts, pulling me to him so that he could kiss my neck and shoulder seductively. I gasped at his touch; just like that I had forgotten his cruel ways and monstrous nature.

"I only want you," He suddenly whispered into my ear, as if he were afraid of saying it louder. I wondered if he had meant to even admit it, being how he disliked any idea to him wanting anything or anyone besides to use for food or to kill as entertainment. He was still kissing me sweetly, kneading my body while my still inexperienced hands only grasped at his clothing and touched the skin of his arms and chest.

Then suddenly Briar wasn't so gentle. He turned me over onto my stomach roughly, pinning me to the ground, and pulled at my loose shorts until I felt the air on my bared skin. I gasped when he was suddenly inside of me, desperate to have me so much that he didn't seem to care what I felt. I didn't struggle, though, instead moaning under his rough yet loving motions and drowning in my own ecstasy. That is, until I felt his fangs pierce into my flesh. I lost my breath, shocked by the sudden pleasure of the bite, and then I was lost completely in a high similar to taking a strong hit of a drug.

When it was over, I was on the floor of my dorm room, my limbs entangled with Briar's. I was looking at him in a daze while he messed with my hair and traced my skin slowly. I didn't take any particularly notice to his expression which was mixed darkly as if he were thinking about something important. But after a moment his eyes lazily moved from my body to my face and then met my eyes.

"If you came with me, it would be like this always," Briar told me slowly, in a calculated careful tone. It was clear he was trying to appear emotionless about the whole situation. "You'd be able to live how you wanted… with certain restrictions. If you let me turn you, we could even go see the world together." If I hadn't been in my after-effect of euphoria, I probably would have gotten timid and begun fighting for my freedom immediately. But instead, I smiled calmly.

"You're worried about your law," I merely answered with slow curiosity.

Briar narrowed his eyes, obviously unhappy that I apparently guessed his motives instead of talking about the immediate issue. "You should be worried about the law," He told me darkly, his tone intimidating, "If they find you before I fix this situation, you'll be killed."

"And you, would you be killed?" I asked, remembering the three vampires; Will, Leslie, and Eli. They had mentioned that Briar would be getting himself killed… perhaps not protecting their secret strictly resulted in death penalty for both parties.

"Depends," Briar responded, looking away mysteriously. I waited for him to explain further, but he waited for me to ask instead.

"Depends how?" I finally caved, curious.

"The Authority acts on reports through investigations or tip offs from other vampires," Briar explained, speaking of the "authority" as if they obviously annoyed him. "They'll gather up suspected vampires and the parties involved, and use their psychics to determine the nature of the illegal activity. If say… I broke the law out of ignorance, they'd just correct me and either kill you or let me choose to enslave or turn you. If I broke the law with knowledge of the law, it means three things… either it's an accident, purposely without any motive, or purposely with motive. If it's an accident, they'll kill you and let me go on a warning. If it's purposely without any motive, they'll kill you and me in a simple execution."

I was looking at him with wide eyes. Hearing about this whole other authority and law in a hidden world was… unbelievable. I just couldn't help but feel the lack of intimidation by threats of something I've never even seen or heard of. But I was still curious as to the working of this world in Briar's life.

"And if you have motive?" I asked, pushing for more information. I couldn't be sure if our situation would be one with motive… Briar could be breaking his law just to have fun with me and my slowly unraveling life. But I assumed an actual motive would be if Briar was in love with me and so broke the law to accommodate me… which was highly unlikely. I wasn't sure what love was, but something in how Briar treated me didn't seem to equal up to love. But who knows, I could be wrong.

"Then both you and I would be killed horribly," Briar answered simply, as if it didn't really concern him. I could tell he wasn't telling me the whole truth of the 'execution', but I just assumed it was because it would be something, like he said, horrible.

I hesitated, a question on my tongue, but not sure if I should ask. I took a moment in our silence to gain courage, and asked, "Which category would we fit under?"

"Purposely, naturally," Briar responded sarcastically, obviously mocking me by not specifying. "Which one do you think it'd be?" He was looking at me intently, now. I felt something similar to stage fright, being put on the spot without the correct notes to what I was supposed to do or say.

"Well…," I continued to hesitate, but he only stared at me without aiding me at all with hints to the truth. "… without motive?"

"Correct," Briar answered almost immediately with sharpness in his voice that matched his sharpened eyes. It was severely intimidating, but I didn't look away. For some reason, I didn't quite believe him, just based on how quickly he agreed. Briar was the type who wouldn't admit any actual feelings besides lust, hunger, and rage.

He was suddenly up and away from me, pulling down the taped up window before looking out at the dark. For a moment, he paused, his eyes darting around with animalistic qualities. I wondered if Bowen and Alisa were nearby, watching for signs of Briar leaving or entering my room so that they could follow him and kill him. Briar only looked for a minute before looking back at me, propped up on my elbows to watch him. The moonlight shaped him sharply in the dark, but at the same time his appearance seemed more like a dream than reality: so dark and dangerous, but tempting and mysteriously beautiful.

And then within a blink of an eye, he was gone. I wondered if he would be gone for months again, or if Bowen and Alisa were following him in preparation to kill him forever; if they even would be able to considering the speed in which he disappeared from my life.

I didn't know what I wanted to do for the rest of the night, but what I was sure about was the fact that I didn't want to stay in my room anymore. Who knew if those vampire hunters would show up again or something worse… I didn't feel like risking it. I instead went to my cellphone and looked up what day it was. Thursday night; it was a party night. I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to bother with that, but after a moment I decided getting a little drunk wasn't so much of a bad idea.

It was annoying going for parties when it was getting so cold. Guys could dress up with layers of clothing and be presentable, but most girls were expected to dress skanky no matter the weather. I wore a mini skirt with leggings underneath and a loose off-the-shoulder halter top that tightened around my waist to show my form well enough. I pinned up a bit of my hair, letting the rest hang down in twirls in order to give some help with warmth. Then, with a pair of skinny ankle boots with a reasonable heel height, I was heading out my door nervously.

When I was out in the streets, there was the familiar view of people walking between the fraternity buildings from one party to another. No one paid special attention to me as most of the faces were unrecognizable. I couldn't tell if it was because they were all new members to the college or people I just hadn't met or if I had forgotten everyone I ever knew now that my mind was constantly circling the thoughts of Briar. The only attention I did get was tasteless looks from the guys of the college who would sometimes whistle and try to get my attention.

I picked a random building, twisting through people to get inside and to where the alcohol was being served. I knew I had been here plenty of times, but it felt significantly different now that I was alone completely. I felt like an alien, a separate being, or someone who was not supposed to be here. Normally, I would have automatically begun dancing, but instead I just drank drink after drink and moved to another building, ignoring every person who tried to strike a conversation with me.

At one frat house, I was biting into a small piece of vodka watermelon, when my eyes caught the sparkling of silver flashing in the dance floor. My eyes followed the glare to notice Alisa, leaning against a wall, and using the blade of a small weapon to reflect light into my eyes purposely. I paled, turning to leave, to run into someone. One look and I recognized Bowen automatically.

Well, who would have thought leaving my room would also get me in trouble?

Bowen smirked at me, something warm in his eyes, and indicated to the back door. I sighed, rolling my eyes, and followed him towards the exit that led into the back yard where a bon fire was going and people were drinking and smoking illegal substances no doubt. When we got to a more secluded spot, Bowen glanced around before leaning towards me, placing a hand on my hip that would no doubt make anyone passing by think he was just hitting on me.

"Where's your master tonight?" Bowen asked with a low voice, no sound threat hidden there.

"I don't have a master, I told you already," I asked, feeling braver now that I was in public. Not that Bowen seemed to be someone to be afraid of. If I went by Alisa's previous words, he was the good cop and she was the bad cop. "And I don't know where Briar went; he mysteriously disappeared out my window in a flurry of mysteriousness."

Admittedly, I was having a bit of an attitude, but honestly this was getting exhausting.

"Do you know where he previously slept during the day in this town?" Bowen asked simply.

I almost answered positively, but hesitated soundly. I didn't want them to get hurt by Briar. Or maybe I didn't want them to hurt Briar. I preferred if they all just went separate directions. "No," I finally said, "Well, I thought maybe I did, but I don't think an alley would be a suitable place where he would sleep…" I could lie if I needed to.

Bowen apparently didn't think this was acceptable though. "You can't protect him, Evangeline," He told me.

"You can call me Evan," I answered, avoiding the main topic.

"Okay, Evan," Bowen leaned in closer; my personal space was now next to nonexistent, "He's a vampire. Vampires are heartless animals; they prey on pretty little humans, destroy their life, and either turn them into monsters or kill them. There's no other option besides letting _us_-" He gestured a thumb towards the building where Alisa was probably told to stay in order to not frighten me with her evil ways. "-help you. And the only way we can help is if you cooperate."

I was torn. I didn't want Briar to be _killed_… even though a part of me knew he probably should be if not to help myself then to save those I know. Then again, I could just be his slave and take my whole friends and family out of the situation. But I was selfish. I wanted Briar to be… I wanted him to be… I don't know… _normal_; to live a normal life without killing everyone and just being someone no one would judge me for loving. But at the same time, I wanted to live and be normal as well.

"Okay, fine, we'll take it slow," Bowen finally said, apparently reading something on my face. "Let's start with the damages. I know from your posts you said he had killed people in front of you. How many were close to you?"

After a moment, I decided I could trust him. "Just… My friends, Jessica and Melinda. And there was Lydia. She was my sister-in-law's younger sister," I answered carefully.

"It could have been worse," Bowen said, a bit inconsiderately, but I guess working with killing vampires meant you saw some horrible things. "What about mind control? Has he driven anyone mentally insane purposely or made them do stuff they don't want to do?"

"My family… well for a bit. He made them forget about him while also giving him shelter and clothes and things," I responded cooperating, "And my friend Brielle Woods; He made her unable to talk to me. Every time she sees me, she has to go the opposite direction…"

"Okay, we'll help with that first, to gain your trust," Bowen said, smiling knowingly as if I had given him a clue to a pot of gold, "We'll be seeing you again, Evan, don't worry. Enjoy your night!" He started towards the building, and I hesitated before following him to see if I could get a hint as to where they went or what he was planning to help with.

It was difficult to follow him through the people in the building, so that I was struggling to see his sandy blonde hair through the crowd. And as I was reaching the front door, I suddenly felt an arm around my shoulders and over my chest followed by a pointed object being pressed against my stomach.

"Tell your master you saw us and I'll stab you in your sleep," I heard Alisa's unmistakable threat in my ear. I tensed up, remembering her glare and her fist against my face. Then I relaxed, gaining courage quickly.

"Good luck with that," I called over my shoulder, "I rarely sleep." And I grabbed her wrist with the weapon in it, stomped on her foot with my heels that were thick and sharp, and heard her inhale sharply in surprise. Then I was walking off hoping that she wouldn't try to take revenge. The threat was still clear though, but I wouldn't be telling Briar of the encounter. As long as he didn't look into my eyes with his enthralling gaze, which reached into my soul and would easily pull out any truth he wanted…


End file.
